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1913 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




THEN =AND^ NOW 



ORIGIN OF THE LATE ROBERT EDWIN DIETZ— HIS 

BUSINESS CAREER, AND SOME INTERESTING 

FACTS ABOUT NEW YORK 



tOMPILED BY HIS ELDEST SON 



FRED. DIETZ 



PRESIDENT OF THE 



R. E. DIET'/ COMPANY 

Chicago NEW YORK LoNDori 



Founded 1840 



Copyright, 1914, 

By 

R. E. Dietz Company 



FEB I3I9I4 

©CI,A.'Ui25G9 



INTRODUCTION 

This l)ook, issued by the R. E. Dietz Company, gives the 
origin of the late ROBERT EDWIN DIETZ, his business 
career, and some interesting facts about New York, dating 
back for a century and more. 

Rol^ert Edwin Dietz and l:is father, John Dietz, Jr., were 
born in New York City. Ilis grandfather, John Joachim 
Dietz, came to this country before the Revolution, and spent 
the remainder of his life here. 

These data have been compiled from the diaries and notes 
of the late Robert Edwin Dietz, and certain additions have 
been made by his eldest son, Fred Dietz, who is also a native 
of New York City. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



ROBERT EDWIN DIETZ— HIS ORIGIN. 

The following- compiled from the diaries and notes of the 
late Robert Edwin Dietz gives his origin, history of his busy 
life, and some interesting facts about New York City in its 
early days. 



I, ROBERT EDWIN DIETZ, have many times been 
asked my origin. 

My father, John Dietz, Jr., was a native of New York City. 

My grandfather, John Joachim Dietz, was born in Barr, 
France, a town situated on the German side of the Rhine, at 
the foot of the Vosges Mountains, about eighteen miles south- 
west of Strasburg. After the Seven Years' War, the Germans 
appropriated both sides of the Rhine, including Barr, his native 
place. Another account states that he was born at Barr, a 
town in Alsace, at the foot of the Vosges Mountains, at the 
entrance into the picturesque Ulrich X'alley. He spoke both 
German and French fluently. 

The earliest trace of the name "Dietz" is found in the little 
town of Diez or Dietz, in Prussia (Hesse-Nassau). From exist- 
ing records, it would appear that the name DIETZ was origi- 
nally "DIEZ." 

The town of Diez or Dietz is on the River Lahn, a tributary 
of the Rhine, and nineteen miles east of Coblenz.* 

* There is also a town of Dietz in the United States in Sheridan County, 
in the State of Wyoming, possessing prosperous coal mines. 



2 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Grandfather John Joachim Dietz. — My grandfather was a 
leather dresser by trade, and while a young man he and his 
two brothers, William and Andrew, left their native place on 




The DIEZ or DIETZ CASTLE, 
With Buildings at Its Foot; 
Situated on the River Lahn. as it now appears. 
This Castle was built during the middle of the eleventh century. 

the Rhine and started out to seek their fortunes in the "New 
World." They arrived in New York before the Revolution. 
On landing in this country, my grandfather followed his trade 
of leather dressing. He established a tannery in the locality 



1 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 3 

which is now the corner of Spring and Wooster Streets, and 
later a glue works in Magazine Street. His brother William 
went to the northern part of the State and joined the Conti- 




AN OLD HOUSE AT THE FOOT OF DIEZ OR 
DIETZ CASTLE— 1913. 

nental Army. William proved to be a good soldier and was 
made a Captain. His brother Andrew became a sutler in the 
Army in New York, and (it is supposed) was accidentally 
drowned, as his body was found in New York Bay with 
money and papers untouched. 



4 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

My grandfather, John Joachim Dietz, was married in New- 
York City on Nov. 2, 1790, to Mrs. Mary Frederica Andes 
who, like himself, came from the Rhine country. The cere- 
mony was performed by the Rev. John C. Kunsie, in the 
German Lutheran Church, at the corner of William and Frank- 
fort Streets. This church, a stone structure, was built in 
1767. It was named "Christ Church", was also known as 




GERMAN LUTHERAN CHRUCH 

Site of William and Frankfort Streets. 

Erected 1767. 

the "Old Swamp Church", and its title was afterwards 
changed to the "German Lutheran Church." The congrega- 
tion later worshiped at \\^alker Street, east of Broadvv^ay. 

My grandmother's maiden name was Mary Frederica Rhine- 
lander. The parents of Miss Rhinelander wished her to marry 
a rich old Baron who had large vineyards near the Rhine. 
She was furnished with money for her wedding, but as she 
disliked the old fellow she decided to leave home and friends 
and used the money to pay her passage to the "New World" 
to choose for herself. She married a Mr. Andes in New York. 
He had come to the New World in the same party with i\Iiss 
Rhinelander. They lived happily until his death. : 

Family of John Joachim Dietz. — The following seven chil- 
dren were born to my grandfather and grandmother : 

John Dietz, Jr., my father, who was born in New York, 
July 16, 1791; married Miss Sophia Meinell. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 5 

Michael, born Feb. 9, 1793 ; married Miss Hannah Clinch. 

Elizabeth Margaretta, born Feb. 26, 1795; never married. 

Catherine, born Oct. 13, 1797; married David William Mo- 
lenaor. 

Mary Elizabeth, born May 20, 1800; married Dr. William 
Molenaor. 

Andrew, born Feb. 16, 1802; married Miss Sarah Sears. 
(Andrew Dietz was the inventor of the Dietz hames.) 




(Picture Uik.n S.rtcnUr I, HJIj.) 

THE OLD DIETZ HOMESTEAD, 
Burlingham, Sullivan County, N. Y., built nearly lOO years ago. 

George, born May 13, 1803 ; married Miss Louisa Clinch. 

All of my grandfather's children were baptized in the Ger- 
man Lutheran Church, corner of William and Frankfort 
Streets. 

Some time prior to 1820, my grandfather built a home for 
his two older sons, John, Jr. (my father), and Michael, at 
Burlingham, Sullivan County, N. Y., where he established 
them in the tannery business. Our family resided there until 



6 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

about the year 1838, four of my brothers and two of my sisters 
being' born there.* 

Burlingham is situated at the foot of the Shawangunk 
Mountains, and while the town has been in existence smce 
Revolutionary days, it in all probability is not as large at the 
present time as it was in 1820. 

Grandfather and Grandmother Dietz died at the Molenaor 
Homestead in Harlem, and were interred in St. Luke's Ceme- 
tery at Hudson, Leroy and Clarkson Streets. When this 
burial-ground was turned into Hudson Park by the city 
authorities, their remains were removed to the German 
Lutheran Cemetery, near Middle Village, Long Island. 

I remember Grandpa Dietz from the time I was a mere 
child. Very early in life I learned to read, and at the age of 
six Grandpa Dietz asked me if I could read. Father said I 
could read a chapter in the Bible for him. I was placed on 
a high-chair, and with the Bible before me I read a chapter, 
and Grandpa gave me a dollar, an incident which I have never 
forgotten. 

Grandfather and Grandmother Meinell. — My grandfather 
on my mother's side, George Meinell, was of German origin. 
He married a Miss Ann Spolding, who was born in Worcester- 
shire, England. Grandma Meinell's father was a surgeon in 
the British Army. He was a large landowner, was fond of 
horses, and had large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep on 
his farm. His farm fronted on the King's highway, and one 
day a passing coach halted in front of his place, and the 
passengers, calling him from the field, told him that a mounted 
robber had taken their valuables. Farmer Spolding replied : 
"If you will tarry a while, I will catch the rascal." With that 
he mounted a horse, followed and overtook the robber and 
tumbled both horse and rider into the ditch at the roadside. 
He brought the robber back to the coach and the passengers 
took him to London. The capture was reported to the King, 
who commanded Farmer Spolding to visit him. When he 

* At this writing, the old Dietz Homestead, shown on preceding page, 
at Burlingham, is still standing, and probably no change has been made in 
it, except by age, since the time it was occupied by the Dietz family. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 7 

appeared before the King and recited his story of the cap- 
ture of the robber, the King was so highly pleased that as a 
reward he gave him the exclusive right to run coaches over 
the downs forever, and the right remained in the Spolding 
family until extinguished by purchase by a railroad. 

Grandfather ^leinell was born in Germany in 1738, and my 
grandmother, Ann Spolding ]\Ieinell, was born in England, 
Aug. 5, 1151. They were married in England in ITTO, and 
thirteen children were born to them, all (with one exception) 
in England, as follows : 

Family of George and Ann Meinell. — George Meinell, born 
Oct. 24, 17(3, at Lewisham, in Kent. Deceased Dec. IG, ITT-l. 

William Meinell, born Nov. 10, 1775, at Lewisham, in Kent. 
Deceased Nov. 10, 1861. 

George Meinell, 2nd, born Apr. 2i, 1777, at Lewisham, in 
Kent. Deceased Oct. 16, 1798. 

Alexander Meinell, born Mar. 6, 1779, at Lewisham, in Kent. 
Deceased June 24, 1781. 

Thomas Meinell, born June — , 1781, at Coventry Cross, 
Southwark. Deceased June 17, 1781. 

Mary Ann Meinell, born Nov. 2, 1782, at Mitcham, Surrey. 
Married John Meyers, in Harlem. Deceased Feb. 22, 1872. 

Elizabeth Meinell, born July 29, 1784, at Mitcham, Surrey. 
Deceased Aug. 23, 1784. 

James Meinell, born July 25, 1785, at Mitcham, Surrey. 
Married Madelane McDanel on Mar. 1, 1807. Deceased July 
3, 1865. 

Thomas Meinell, 2nd, born Mar. 12, 1787, at Mitcham, Sur- 
rey. Married Ann Blauvelt May 14, 1808. Deceased at Ja- 
maica, \V. I. 

Sarah Meinell, born Feb. 16, 1789, at Mitcham, Surrey. 
Married Samuel Dunbar Sept. 12, 1807. Deceased Mar. 14, 
1879. 

Charlotte Meinell, born Sept. 21, 1791, at Mitcham, Surrey. 
Deceased Sept. — , 1798. 

Sophia Meinell, my mother, born July 10, 1793, at Mitcham, 
Surrey. Married John Dietz, Jr., July 10, 1813, at Harlem, 
New York. Deceased Dec. 10, 1856. 



8 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Ann Meinell, born , 1T9T, in New York. Deceased 

Oct. 15, 1798. 

Samuel Dunbar (who married Sarah JMeinell) was an archi- 
tect and builder. He erected many buildings for the first 
John Jacob Astor, and built the first row of French style of 
dwellings in New York, for a wealthy Frenchman named 
Depau, on the south side of Bleecker Street, between Thomp- 
son and Sullivan Streets, known as "Depau" row. A. T. 
Stewart lived for many years in Depau row before he moved 
to Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. Dr. Valentine 
Mott, a pioneer in surgery of world-wide fame, who, for fifteen 
years was a consulting surgeon of Bellevue Hospital, also 
lived in Depau row when it was a centre of wealth and 
fashion. 

Samuel Dunbar also built the house of Washington Irving 
at Sleepy Hollow, just north of Tarrytown. It was here that 
Irving laid the scene of his immortal story, "The Legend of 
Sleepy Hollow," a short distance north of the spot where 
Major John Andre, the British spy, was captured while on 
his way to New York with plans of West Point in his pos- 
session. 

Where Grandpa Meinell Resided in London. — In 1780 
Grandpa and Grandma Meinell resided in London, on the 
same street with Lord George Gordon, during the Lord George 
Gordon Riots, that occurred on June 8th and 9th of that year. 
At Grandpa's request, soldiers and cannon were placed there 
to defend his house against the rioters. Every person who 
ventured into the street was compelled to say, "No Popery !" 
and "Success to the Government!" Grandma Meinell had 
Catholic neighbors who were afraid to venture into the street. 
She went to market for them, bought cockades, and pinned 
them on their hats as a sign of loyalty. Before the riots 
ceased, thirty-seven fires were burning in London. Gordon 
was arrested and tried for treason. He was believed to be 
insane, and was finally placed in prison, where he died of 
brain fever. 

During the year ITSO, Grandfather Meinell made and ex- 
hibited in London the first over-shot water wheel. One quart 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 9 

of water would cause it to revolve continuously during twenty- 
four hours. All wheels in use in England at that time were 
what were called "breast" or "under-shot" wheels. 

When Grandfather Meinell Came to New York. — In 1T95 
Grandfather Meinell visited Germany to secure monies de- 
vised to him by a relative, and while away his partner de- 
frauded him. He came to New York the following year, 
1796, and resided in William Street. 

In 1798, when the yellow fever was epidemic in New York 
City, Grandfather Meinell's son George, 2nd, and his young- 
est daughter, Ann, died with it, and were interred by the 
city authorities in the public burying ground, where is now 
W^ashington Square, at the southerly end of Fifth Avenue, 
south of AA^averly Place. Grandma was also taken with the 
fever, but recovered. She was not made aware of the death 
of her son George and daughter Ann until she had partly 
regained her health. 

Grandfather Meinell's Home in Harlem. — About the year 
1812 Grandfather Meinell took up his home in Harlem Lane, 
now part of St. Nicholas Avenue, at 118th Street. When 
Grandma Meinell came here from London, she brought with 
her twelve elegantly carved mahogany chairs. They were 
moved from place to place, and after she gave up house- 
keeping it was thought the chairs were too old-fashioned to 
please modern tastes, and they were placed in the barn at 
Harlem and left there until the space was needed for hay. 
They were then piled one on top of the other under some 
tall lilac bushes which grew under the overhanging rocks 
on Harlem Lane, until they were weather-beaten and fell 
apart. They were then cut up for fire wood. Only one was 
saved, to be used as a chair for the sick. It was finally seen 
by an old furniture dealer, who offered seventy-five dollars 
for it. 

Grandpa Meinell was very fond of flowers and passed many 
of his later years attending his garden at his home in Harlem. 
He planted numbers of trees by the roadside to make shade 
for those who might live after him. He was often told by 
his neighbors, "You won't live to enjoy the shade of those 



10 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



trees," and he would reply, "I do not plant for myself, but 
for others." He was pleased to have his neighbors visit his 
garden and admire his plants and flowers. He passed away 
at his home on Harlem Lane, on March 18, 1825. 

John Meyers' Farm. — Aly grandmother's eldest daughter. 
Aunt Mary Ann Aleinell, was married to John Meyers in 




John Meyers' Farm House, Harlem, which stood on what is now 
the northeast corner of Eighth Avenue and One Hundred and Thirty- 
third Street, from 1835 to 1897. The farm was purchased by him in 1825 
and contained thirty-five acres. 

Harlem, and grandmother loaned him the money with which 
he bought a farm in Harlem, during the year 1825. It con- 
tained about thirty-five acres and extended diagonally from 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



11 



133d Street and Eighth Avenue to the Harlem River. It 
adjoined the "Archil)ald Watts" Farm. Here he erected a 
house in 1835. The first decorations in this house were done 
by a German painter. The centrepiece of the living-room 
was a beautiful butterfly painted from a live one caught in 
the garden. The colors were blue and gold. The deep border 
on the walls was ornamented with roses in wreaths of lace 




{From daguerreotype tahn about /Sj5. ) 

MARY ANN MEINELL MEYERS. 

in deep hanging festoons. The painting remained bright for 
forty years. 

I was always fond of walking, and when young, often took 
long tramps in the country on pleasant Sundays. Before I 
was married I frequently started out on a Sunday morning 
from where I boarded in Maiden Lane and walked to my 
uncle's farmhouse, in Harlem, arriving in time to take break- 



12 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



fast with them, and returning home via the Third Avenue 
Horse-Car Line. 

Aunt Mary Ann Meinell Meyers, daughter of George and 
Ann Meinell, died in her Harlem home, Feb. 22, 18:2. The 
farm then became the property of my eldest brother, John 
George Dietz, who cut it up into city lots and sold it at auction. 
In 1885. I (R. E. Dietz) purchased at foreclosure sale eight full 
lots on the Avenue, where the house stood, and ten lots in the 




(From dagiietreotype taken about 184^.) 

WILLIAM MEINELL. 

rear of these, five facing on 133d Street and five facing on 
134th Street ; and resold them, in 1895, for 205,000 dollars. 

Aunt Mary's brother, William Meinell, when visiting his 
old home in England, after an absence of about sixty years, 
wrote a long and interesting letter to her at Harlem, under 
date of June 13, 1855. It is a remarkable specimen from the 
fact that at the time of writing he was eighty years of age, and 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



13 



it was written with a turkey quill pen, on plain, unlined, 
double-sheet letter paper, T x 9 inches, with 4G lines to a page, 
containing 2,816 words. Original letter is here reproduced : 






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A LEAF FROM THE PAST 21 

Grandma Meinell. — Grandma Meinell was one of Na- 
ture's noblewomen. Throughout her life she was thought- 
ful, determined, persevering, full of English pluck, and had 
a presence suited for the highest station. Her face was of 
the Roman type, grand even in her old age. I will relate 
an instance of her will-power. It was Christmas Eve, about 
1836 or 1838, when Christmas was honored by both old and 
young more than at the present time. While the family were 
preparing for the evening festival, Grandma repeated ancient 
Christmas stories, and "snap dragon" was prepared (raisins 
in a dish of burning brandy or alcohol). The lights being 
removed, all gathered about the table and plucked the raisins 
from the flaming dish, and by a quick motion placed them 
in their mouths without burning their fmgers. The darkened 
room, the blue flame and figures standing about, gave a weird 
and uncanny look to the scene, as each one would convey 
to his (or her) lips the hot fruit from the dish. 

When the evening had passed and the hour for retiring 
arrived. Grandma inquired if any one could recollect what 
occurred in the room the previous Christmas Eve. No one 
could answer. Grandma then said, "I will tell you. The 
question was, 'Can any one, old or young, abandon a bad 
habit?' George, my husband, practiced the German habit 
of snuff-taking, and I often requested him to abandon it. He 
would then say, 'Take a pinch; you don't know the comfort 
you will gain,' and I commenced by taking a pinch now and 
then, and the habit soon grew on me and I became fond of it. 
But on the eve of last Christinas, after all had retired, I took 
my snufif-box from my pocli tt, and, taking the bean from 
the box, threw the snuff into the fire, replaced the bean and 
put the box back in my pocket, and I have waited until now 
to show the young folks that I could abandon a foolish habit 
of many years." She then took the box from her pocket and 
said, "I have not used snuff since last Christmas, and I will 
not use snuff again while I live." 

Grandma Meinell had a most retentive memory, being able 
to repeat in her old age the English songs learned in her 
childhood. After reading a book she could rehearse all the 



22 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

good points in a way that was both charming and enter- 
taining. She came of a long-lived family. She told me that 
several of her relations lived nearly 100 years, and two of 
them over that age. She died in her nintieth year, on March 
15, 181:1, at the home of her daughter, Sarah Meinell Dunbar, 
in Mulberry Street, near Bleecker, having been stricken with 
paralysis. 

Grandfather and Grandmother Meinell were interred in 
St. Michael's Church yard, corner of Tenth Avenue and 
Ninetv-ninth Street. In December, 1889, the vestry of St. 
Michael's having decided to do away with the old church 
building, notified all parties to remove the remains of their 
relatives from the churchyard, and on March 18, 1890, I trans- 
ferred the remains of my grandparents, George Meinell and 
Ann Spolding Meinell, to my lot. No. 16,700, on Ocean Hill, 
in Greenwood Cemetery. The slab covering their grave has 
the following inscription : 

Sacred 

To the Memory of 

GEORGE MEINELL, 

A Native of Germany, 

Who Departed This Life 

On the 18th Day of March, 

In the Year of Our Lord, 

1825, in the STth Year 

of His Age. 



Also 

To the Memory of 

ANN SPOLDING, 

Wife of George Meinell, 

A Native of England, 

Who Departed This Life 

On the 15th Day of March, 

In the Year of Our Lord, 

1841, in the 90th Year 

of Her Age. 

John Dietz, Jr., and Wife. — My father, John Dietz. Jr., 
married Sophia Meinell (a native of Mitcham. Surrey, Eng.), 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 23 

in the Dutch Reformed Church, Harlem, July 10, 18l;3. They 
had a family of ten children : 

John Georg;e Dietz, born in New York, Dec. 26, 1814. 

William Henry Dietz, born in New York, May 29, 1816. 

Robert Edwin Dietz, born in New York, Jan. 5, 1818, 

Alfred Meinell Dietz, born in New York, Sept. 28, 1819. 

Mary Ann Dietz, born in Burlingham, N. Y., July 23, 1821. 

Samuel Dunbar Dietz, born in Burlingham, N Y Aug- 
17, 1823. 

James Meinell Dietz, born in Burlingham, N. Y., May 26, 
1825. 

Sophia Ann Meinell Dietz, born in Burlingham, N. Y Oct 
29, 1828. 

Michael Alexander Dietz, born in Burlingham, N. Y Auo- 
2, 1830. 

Mary Elizabeth Dietz, born in Burlingham, N. Y., May 
9, 1835. 

Although I was the third child and considered the most 
delicate one of the family, I outlived them all. 

My father, John Dietz, Jr., was fond of horses, and, having 
spent much time and money caring- for horses he owned, he 
advised me never to keep more than I had absolute use for. 
The day he married, he rode to his bride's home in Harlem 
on horseback. 

As a boy, I can remember father experimenting with dif- 
ferent forms of horseshoes, and I have a United States patent 
that was granted to him April 22, 1831, for an improvement 
in horseshoes. It bears the signature of Andrew Jackson, 
then President of the United States, and also the signature 
of Martin Van Buren, who was then Secretary of State. 

My first keen recollection of my mother dates back to the 
time when I was but a very small child. During the year 
1820, our family were living in Burlingham, Sullivan County, 
N. Y., in the house built by my grandfather, John Joachim 
Dietz, and in the summer of that year my younger brother 
Alfred was very ill. The doctor advised that he be taken 
to New York. This was done, but he died shortly after. 
When mother returned after the burial, I was anxious to 
know why she had not brought Alfred home with her. She 
told me that God had taken him up to heaven, and while 



24 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

caressing me she would grieve and shed tears. I could not 
understand her meaning and asked, "Why did He take him?" 
and "Would He bring him back?" All my questions in- 
creased mother's grief, and I supposed she was sick and 
had an aching head, while she sat upon the bedroom floor 
looking over Alfred's clothing and resting her head on the 
bureau drawer. In this position she would grieve intensely 
under my questioning, and I strove to comfort her by placing 
a strip of brown paper on her forehead, as I had seen her 
do when my father was ill with a severe headache. 

The recollections of my mother's grief at that time are 
indelibly fixed in my memory. Her sorrow caused me to 
think, and I am glad that I was compelled to think so early 
in life, and was thus taught to use the faculties which all 
possess, but which all do not use in the way most advan- 
tageous to them. 

My father, John Dietz, Jr., died Oct. 10, 1854, at Hemp- 
stead, L. I., and my mother, Sophia Meinell, died Dec. 10, 
1856, at Harlem. Both were buried in my brother Samuel 
Dietz's plot in Greenwood Cemetery. 

Social Centres of a Century. — "Bowling Green" is at the 
lower end of Broadway. The iron fence surrounding it was im- 
ported from England during the year 1771. The fence and 
foundation cost 800 pounds. The city's social centre, in 1820, 
was at the lower end of Broadway, "Bowling Green." 

Note. — From that time up to 1910 the changes have been as 
follows : 

1820 — Broadway and Bowling Green. 

1830 — Broadway and Barclay Street. 

1840— St. John's Park. 

1850 — Bond Street and Lafayette Place. 

1860 — Washington Square. 

1870 — Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. 

1880 — Fifth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street. 

1890 — Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. 

1900 — Fifth Avenue and Forty-ninth Street. 

1910 — Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street. 

The Oldest Landmark. — Fraunces' Tavern, Broad and Pearl 
Streets, is probably the oldest landmark in the city. It was 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 25 

built by Stephen De Lancey in the early years of 1700. In 
1^62 Samuel Fraunces, innkeeper, bought it. At this place, 
in 1T68, the Chamber of Commerce was organized, in the 
"long room," where, in. 1783, Washington bade farewell to his 
officers, John Cruger presiding. 

In the early days of the city, the section around Bowling 
Green was a popular part of New Amsterdam, afterward called 
New York. It was the court end of the town. At this end ot 
Broadway, to the west, the buildings in the neighborhood were 
substantial two-story affairs. Some of them stood the ravages 
of nearly a century and a half of time. Among the noted people 
of New York, who lived on Broadway opposite Bowling Green, 
in Colonial times, were members of the Livingston, Ver- 
plank and Van Cortland families. Before the beginnino- of 
the last century, the following were residents of the block : 
No. 1, Mrs. Loring; No. 3, John AVatts; No. o. Chancellor 
Robert R. Livingston; No. 7, John Stevens; No. 9, Eliza- 
beth Van Cortland; No. 13, Mary Ellison, and No. 11 was 
the Atlantic Garden. 

Broadway of Early Days, — In the early days, Broadway 
(now probably the longest street in the world — fifteen miles 
in length) extended only from Bowling Green to Vesey Street. 
For ten blocks north of that point, it was called "Great George 
Street," in honor of King George III. As it stretched further 
northward, it went through farms and wild lands. After 
179i, the part known as '"Great George Street" was changed 
and made a part of Broadway. In 1709 it was only paved 
as far as Maiden Lane, and not until 1843 was the pave- 
ment extended as far north as Fulton Street. 

Under the early Dutch rule, what is now lower Broadway 
was little better than a dusty or miry cart-road. The old 
Dutch called it "De Heere Straat" (chief street). In 1665, 
after the English snatched New Amsterdam from the Dutch, 
they renamed it "New York" as a compliment to James 
Stuart, Duke of York, whose brother, Charles II., granted him 
the territory. They also changed the names of many of 
the streets which were hard for the English tongue to pro- 
nounce. Thus "De Heere Straat" was changed to "Broad- 
way." 



26 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

How the City Was First Lighted. — New York was first 
lighted in the following simple way : "Under date of Nov. 
13, 169T, a resolution was passed, compelling every house- 
keeper within tlie city, on other than moonlight nights, to 
display lights in their wmdows, fronting the respective streets 
of the city, according to such manner and rule as directed 
by the Mayor, two Aldermen and two assistants, under the 
penalty of ninepence for each night of default, and on Dec. 
2d of that year it was ordered that every seventh house 
should hang out a pole with a lantern and candle, and the 
said seven houses to pay an equal portion of the expense." 

First Printing Press. — It was in 1693 that the first printing 
press was set up in New York, and the first newspaper 
printed. At No. 81 Pearl Street, a tablet was placed by the 
New York Historical Society to commemorate the fact that 
the first printing press in the city was set up there by William 
Bradford, and another tablet on the Cotton Exchange com- 
memorates the fact that on that spot Bradford issued his 
New York Gazette in 1725, the first newspaper in the city. 
It ceased publication in 1712. This locality fairly teems with 
historical importance in connection with the growth of New 
York. 

First Fire Department. — In the year 1731, the first step to 
organize a Fire Department for this city was taken. The 
equipment consisted of a few leather buckets, fire hooks, poles 
and ladders. Permission was then given to order two fire 
engines from London. When these engines arrived the fol- 
lowing year, they were placed in the City Hall. They drew 
water from cisterns. It required twenty-four men to make 
up the regular force of fire fighters, as twelve men were re- 
quired to work the engines. During the year 1837 an engine 
house was built in Broad Street, and then the first regular 
Volunteer Fire Department was organized. Its members 
were excused from performing military duty and from serving 
as Constables or Jurors. The Volunteer Fire Department 
continued in existence until 1865, when it was disbanded and 
the paid department installed. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



27 



New York's First Theatre.— The first theatre in New York 
was opened March 5, 17-50, in what was then known as Kipp 
Street (on the site of what is now Nos. 64 and 66 Nassau 
Street), between John Street and Maiden Lane. The first 
performance, "Richard IIL," commenced at 6:30 P. M. 




{Courtesy of J. B. Lippincott Company.) 

ST. PAUL'S CHAPEL, 

Broadway, between Fuhon and Vesey Streets. 

Erected 1766. 

St. Paul's Chapel, one of the earhest houses of worship in 
New York, occupies the block front on Broadway, between 
Fulton and \"esey Streets, and the grounds extend back to 
Church Street. It will be noticed that the steeple is at the 
westerly end of the church, and I understand that it was 



28 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

placed there to comply with an old tradition of the church 
that the chancel and altar should be in the easterly end. 

After Georc^e Washington was inaugurated President of 
the United States, on April 30, 1TS9, the President, Senators, 
Representatives, heads of departments and many others pro- 
ceeded to St. Paul's Chapel, where prayers suitable for the 
occasion were read by the then recently elected Bishop of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, Dr. Provost. 
These services over, the President was escorted back to his 
own home. 

In Washington's diary from 1789 to 1T91 is the entry, as 
regularly as Sunday comes around, "Went to St. Paul's 
Church in the forenoon." Over the Washington pew is the 
seal of the United States, and opposite, marking the pew of 
Governor George Clinton, is the coat of arms of New York 
State. The church organ was built in London in 1802. 

Nev^^ York Exports in 1790 and To-day. — At the end of the 
year 1790, exports from New York, amounted to but $2,505,465. 

(Note. — Washington, D. C, reports this year (1913) show 
that from the year 1880 to 1913 agricultural products sent 
abroad grew in value from $694,000,000 to $1,200,000,000, an 
increase of 70 per cent. Manufactured products exported in 
1880 were valued at $122,000,000, in 1913 at $1,200,000,000, an 
increase of more than 800 per cent.) 

City Hotel. — The first building in New York to have a slate 
roof was the City Hotel, erected during the year 1791, on 
the west side of Broadway, extending from Thames to Cedar 
Streets. This gave the city its onh^ first-class hotel and the 
loftiest edifice of its kind. It opened in 1806. 

In 1798, the Park Theatre was erected at what is now Nos. 
25 and 27 Park Row, with a seating capacity of 1,200. On 
its stage most of the famous actors of the time appeared. It 
was a two-story and attic building, which looked more like 
a warehouse than a theatre. In 1816 it was the only theatre 
open in the city, and for some years afterward was the only 
playhouse of note. Doors opened at 6 :30 ; performance com- 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



39 



menced at 7 :30. It burned in 1848. "Theatre Alley," behind 
lower Park Row, takes its name from this old-time building, 
being located directly in the rear. 

New York's First Glue Works. — Shortly after the year 1800 
my grandfather, John Joachim Dietz, secured from the city 
authorities the first license or charter to manufacture glue in 
this city. He located his glue works in Magazine Street, which 
was then considered out of town. The magazine or powder 







(Courtesy of Harper & Brothers.) 

THE PARK THEATRE IN 1798. 

house was located there. The street is now the upper part 
of Pearl Street, between Broadway and Chatham Street. 

New York's Oldest Street.— Pearl Street is New York's 
oldest thoroughfare. Starting where Broadway, under the 
name of State Street, fronts Battery Park, it winds around 



30 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

to the eastward and finally ends at Broadway, next above 
Duane Street. It was at No. 73 Pearl Street that the first 
City Hall was located. 

"Evening Post." — The "Evening Post" was founded Nov. 
16, 1801, at No. 10 Pine Street, by Alexander Hamilton and 
other prominent Federalists. It is now the most widely 
known evening newspaper in America. William Cullen 
Bryant, its late editor, resided for a numl)er of years at No. 92 
Hudson Street. 

Robert Fulton, — Was the son of a Scotch innkeeper. When 
he came to this country, he settled in Pennsylvania and began 
life as an artist. After coming to New York, he was known 
as a miniature painter. Later he went to Europe to study art 
with Benjamin West, and finding that his tastes lay more 
toward civil engineering than toward art, he adopted the for- 
mer profession. 

\\niile in Europe he became accjuainted with Chancellor 
Robert R. Livingston, who was then the American Minister 
to the French Court, and while there he constructed a steam- 
boat whose trial trip was to take place on the River Seine. 
The boat was completed in 1803. The first trial resulted in 
the boat going to the bottom because its hull was not able 
to sustain the weight of the machinery. It was taken up 
and reconstructed, and another trial proved successful, 

Fulton's Courtship. — Fulton returned to New York in 1806, 
and commenced the construction of a boat that was to con- 
tain an engine he had ordered built in England, While he 
was perfecting his first model of the steamboat, he won the 
affection of a daughter of the distinguished family of Living- 
stons, Although a poor young man, he was not wanting in 
courage. One day he approached her uncle, Chancellor 
Robert R. Livingston, and asked, "Is it too presumptuous 
in me to aspire to the hand of your niece, Harriet?" The 
distinguished Chancellor replied, "By no means. Her father 
and the family may object because you are poor, but if 
Harriet doesn't object (and she seems to have a world of 
good sense), go ahead, and may my best wishes and bless- 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 31 

ings go with you." Young Fulton followed his advice, and 
the wedding took place at Clermont, the seat of the Living- 
stons, on the upper Hudson, in the early summer of 1806. 

The First Steamboat. — Fulton perfected his invention, and 
this, the first steamboat, was christened the "Clermont," after 
the Livingston country seat on the Hudson.* On Monday 
morning, Aug. 7, 1807, at 6 o'clock, the steamer "Clermont" 
started from the foot of Cortlandt Street for Albany, 159 
miles from this city. The fuel used was wood, and the trip 
was made in thirty-two hours. My father, John Dietz. Jr., 
was among the number who saw the little craft leave the 
dock in New York City on this, her maiden trip. 

After this trial the "Clermont" was enlarged, and in 1808 
made regular weekly trips between Albany and New York, 
fare $7.00 ; and Fulton immediately became a popular idol. 
Prior to that time Fulton Street, east of Broadway, was 
called "Fair Street," and west of Broadway "Partition Street," 
so called because it partitioned the two adjacent tracts of 
land to the north and south when the big estate just west 
of Broadway and stretching west toward the North River, 
was split in two, preparatory to being subdivided into build- 
ing lots. In Fulton's honor, Fair and Partition Streets were 
united in one continuous thoroughfare under the name of 
"Fulton Street." 

Fulton lived but a few years to enjoy his fame. He died 
in this city on Feb. 4, 1815, at No. 1 State Street, and his 
remains were placed in the Livingston vault in Trinity 
Church yard. 

While Robert Fulton is given credit for perfecting the first 
practical steamboat, an authority states that John Fitch, in 
the summer of 1796 (which was eleven years prior to the 
time that Fulton launched the "Clermont") tested a steam- 
boat that he had constructed, upon the Collect, or "Fresh 

* The building, No. i State Street, in which Robert Fulton constructed 
the "Clermont," has, for a long time, been occupied by the Seamen's 
Church Institute. It is now (in 1913) to be torn down to make way 
for a modern ofifice building. It was at one time looked upon as a 
palatial residence and had for its front yard the whole of what is now 
Battery Park. 



32 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Water Pond," where the present Tombs Building now stands. 
This pond was said, by some, to be sixty feet deep, and by 
others, that it had no bottom. The boat Fitch constructed 
was fitted with a screw propeller and a twelve-gallon iron 
pot served as a boiler, and, it is said, this little craft circled 
the pond several times at rate of six miles an hour, but no 
practical results issued from Fitch's experiment. 

Note. — Compared with the Clermont, it may be stated that 
the new (1913) Hudson River Day Line steamer, the "Wash- 
ington Irving," is 420 feet long, is licensed to carry 6,000 pas- 
sengers, and cost one million dollars. 

The First Steam Ferry Boat. — While the first Hoboken 
Ferry was established in 17^4, Colonel John Stevens, of Ho- 
boken, built and put in operation, in October, 1811, the first 
steam ferry boat, which plied between New York City and 
Hoboken, N. J. This boat was the first steam ferry that 
was ever used in any part of the world. 

In 1810 New York Had But 96,373 Inhabitants.— When, in 
1810, Trinity bells rang out the old year. New York had 
96,373 inhabitants, and was proud of having so many, for 
it showed that in ten years the population had almost doubled. 
New York was just beginning to throb with the new im- 
pulse which, within a century, was to make it the world's 
second city ; yet, in spite of its amazing growth in ten years, 
it was not much of a town to boast of in 1810. 

Note. — Compare the figures of 1810 with 1913 — population 
of Manhattan, 2,500,000 ; Greater New York, 5,000,000. 

The Stages in 1810. — In 1810 the stage was the only mode 
of land transportation. The "Boston Mail" was the only 
stage route then on Manhattan Island. The other lines, four 
in number, ran to Trenton, Princeton, W^ashington and Bal- 
timore. 

City Hall. — With 1810 a spirit of public improvement set 
in. The cornerstone of the present City Hall (in City Hall 
Park, below Chambers Street) was laid May 26, 1803, by 
Edward Livingston, former Mayor of New York, and the 
work on this structure, which had been dragging for years, 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



33 



was pushed forward. In the beginning, it was decided to 
construct the building of brownstone, and the Council sent 
John McComb, the architect who also had been architect 
for Castle Garden, to Newark, N, J., where he bought a 
brownstone quarry. Later he persuaded the City Fathers 
to build much of the exterior of marble, and McComb jour- 
neyed again to Newark, where he sold the quarry, which he 
called "the City's Brown Horse," for 30 dollars. McComb 




(Courtesy of P. F. Collier & Son, Inc.) 

BROADWAY, CITY HALL and PARK ROW. 
in 1840. 

next rode to Philadelphia, where he negotiated for a white 
marble quarry. This deal falling through, he traveled to 
West Stockbridge, Mass., and contracted there for all the 
white marble used in the construction of City Hall. This 
marble was hauled over the rough roads all the way from 
the Berkshire Hills to New York, by teams of horses and 
oxen, McComb himself superintending the strengthening of 
the bridges for its transportation. 



34 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

The records show that 35,2 Tl cubic feet of marble were 
used, costing- a trifle over 35,000 dollars. The total cost of 
the building, at the time of the ceremony celebrating its com- 
pletion on July 4, ISll, was 538,734 dollars, a sum far in excess 
of the original estimate. 

The County Courthouse, fronting on Chambers Street, is 
directly in the rear of the present City Hall. It was a "Tweed" 
job, and said to have cost the city ten million dollars. 

The question has been frequently asked why the upper 
side or rear of the City Hall was built of freestone, while 
its front and ends were of white marble, and the explana- 
tion is, that at the time the Hall was designed, its location 
was so far uptown that the authorities of the day decided 
it would be useless to incur the cost of a marble rear wall 
when there would be so few to see it. A writer of that 
period declared, "It would be out of the sight of all the world." 

When completed, the City Hall was considered the hand- 
somest structure in the United States. Prior to that time 
the City Hall was located at Wall Street, corner of Nassau, 
wdiere the Sub-Treasury now stands. It was erected dur- 
ing the year 1T99, at a cost of 20.000 dollars. 

The First Mail. — In 1810, the city proper did not extend 
above Chambers Street, the entire population lived below 
Canal and Division Streets, and oil lamps dimly lighted the 
streets on all except moonlight nights. The mails were ir- 
regular, the time of their arrival and departure depending 
much on the weather. Postage rates were high, and en- 
velopes were not used. Letters were charged for by the 
sheet, six and a half cents being the rate for a single sheet 
to Harlem, a distance of about eight miles. 




A LEAF FROM THE PAST 35 

First Mail Sent from New 
York City, — The start of our 
Postal System was made on 
New Year's Day, 1673, when 
the first mail was sent from 
New York to Boston by a post- 
man carrying- the bag over the 
Indian trail. This was the 
germ of our present Postal 
System. 

The first Post-Office of the 
city was conducted in General 
Bailey's private house at No. 29 
William Street, close to Wall 
Street, from 1804 to 1825, the 
office proper being twelve feet 
wide and fifteen feet deep. It 
was abandoned in 1825, 



{Courtesy of P. F. Collier & Son, Inc.) 

First Post-Cffilce, 29 William Street (1840 to 1825) 



The second Post-Of- 
fice was established in 
the same neighborhood, 
in a little schoolhouse 
on Garden Street (Ex- 
change Place), east of 
Broad Street (about 
where the Lord's Court 
Building now is), 
where eight clerks were 
employed. It occupied 
a single room forty feet 
in length ; was on the 
first floor of this two- 
story and attic build- 
ing, and the Post-mas- 
ter resided on the 
floors above. It con- 
tinued there from 1825 (courtesy of p. F. Collier & son, Im.) 

to 181:5. Second Post-Office, Garden St. (Exchange Place) 

(1825 to 1845). 




36 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



In 1815, the United States Government converted the Mid- 
dle Dutch Church, on Nassau Street, between Cedar and 
Liberty Streets, into the city's third Post-Office, and paid for 
its use an annual rental of 10,000 dollars. It was so used 
until 1875, when the present (fourth) Post-Office, in City Hall 
Park, at Broadway and Park Row, was completed. 

The Middle Dutch Church was built in 172*3. The steeple 
and much of its interior woodwork were broufrht from Hol- 




THIRD POST-OFFICE, 

Nassau Street, between Cedar and Liberty Streets (1845 to 1875). 

land. During the Revolution practically all the churches in 
the city were used as prison houses, and many of them were 
much injured, but this church suffered most, being used as a 
prison, a hospital and a riding school. In 1790 it was re- 
paired and again used for public worship. Dr. Livingston 
preached the reopening sermon. The Mutual Life Insur- 
ance Company's building now occupies this site. 

The present General Post-Oflice is in the Federal Building, 
one of the finest granite buildings in the world, located at 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



37 



the intersection of Broadway and Park Row, 262 feet on 
each thoroughfare and 2T9 feet on Mail Street. 

Note. — 1913 : The city having outgrown its Fourth Post- 
Ofhce, there is nearing completion a new General Post-Office 




THE PRESENT FOURTH POST-OFFICE, 
Intersection of Broadway and Park Row (i9i3)- 

(the Fifth) on Eighth Avenue, between Thirty-first and 
Thirty-third Streets. 

This new post-office is a 6,200,000 dollar structure over 
the sunken car yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad, occupying 



38 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




c 

w 

eu 

^^ 
c -> 

Si 

<; j^ 

- CO 



Cr, r- 

C s 

>■< 
to 






A LEAF FROM THE PAST 39 

a space 375 x 335 feet. Offices of the Postmaster and his 
chief assistants are on the second floor front, and executive 
offices of the Railway Mail Service on the third floor front. 
All letter mail will be handled on the first floor, second-class 
matter in the basement. There will be a direct connection by 
chutes and elevators from each floor with railway mail cars 
on tracks under the post-office. 

Wall Street and Slave Market— First City Hall.— Wall 

Street, the great financial centre, was laid out during the 
year 1688. Trinit}' Church stood at its head (at what is now 
Broadway), and in liUiJ a slave-market was established at its 
easterly end. All negro and Indian slaves for hire within the 
city had to take their stand in the Market House at the Wall 
Street slip, until such time as they were hired. Slaves were 
also bought and sold there, and it was not until 1762 that the 
residents of the neighborhood had courage to complain of the 
mart and demand its removal. 

The following is a sample "ad." that appeared in the New 
York "Gazette," December, 1734: 

"A likely negro woman about twenty-two years old, has 
had the smallpox, and can do all sorts of household and 
country work, viz., bake bread, cook, wash, spin, work in the 
field, and is a very good dairy woman. Enquire of the printer 
hereof." 

The first City Hall was located at No. 73 Pearl Street. 
The second, at what is now the northeast corner of Wall 
and Nassau Streets. It was here that General Washington, 
the first President of the United States, was inaugurated on 
April 30, 1789. He then resided at No. 1 Cherry Street. 
On August 30, 1800, General Washington gave up his resi- 
dence here and went to Washington, D. C. 

New York Stock Exchange. — Domine Samuel Drisius, pas- 
tor of the Dutch Reformed Church, was at one time the 
owner of the land on which the New York Stock Exchange, 
on Broad Street just off Wall Street, now stands. It was 
then used as a sheep pasture, and at appropriate times the 
sheep were sheared. It was not cut up into city lots until 
the year 1699. (While there are no sheep in that section now, 
it is said that the lambs are regularly shorn there.) 



40' A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Treasured in the archives of the New York Stock Ex- 
change is the original agreement of its founders, dated May 
17, 1792. This agreement was signed by twenty-four brokers 
who met under the buttonwood tree, in front of what is now 
the Central Trust Company building, at No. 60 Wall Street. 

New York's First Financial Institution. — New York's first 
financial institution, (the Bank of New York), the second bank 
established in the United States, organized March 15, 1784, 
and opened for business June 9, 1784, in St. George's Square 
(now 125 Pearl Street). It is five years older than the Fed- 
eral Government, which did not come into being until March, 
1789. 

At the time this bank was organized, there was but one 
other bank in the United States, the Bank of North America, 
in Philadelphia, which had been in successful operation since 
1782. In 1796 the Bank of New York purchased the prop- 
erty on what is now the northeast corner of Wall and William 
Streets. It is still located there, having been its home since 
that date. At the time its charter was granted, March 21, 
1791, it had a paid-up capital of 318,250 dollars. 

New York's First Reservoir. — The Merchants' Bank was 
located at No. 25 Wall Street; the Manhattan Water Com- 
pany, with banking privileges, was at No. 43 ; in fact, all 
of the banks and most of the insurance companies were 
located on Wall Street in its early days. 

Before Croton water was introduced, the Manhattan Water 
Company, whose office was at No. 43 Wall Street, had a 
reservoir on the north side of Chambers Street, east of Broad- 
way, with a capacity of 132,690 gallons, from which water 
was supplied at the houses of those who could afford to pay 
for it. With the assistance of two 18-horsepower engines 
pumping sixteen hours daily, they could supply 691,200 gal- 
lons of water per day from a spring in Reade Street. This 
water was conveyed through twenty-five miles of log pipe 
into the houses of all who cared to pay for the water supply. 
The inhabitants were also supplied with water from casks 
peddled from carts and sold by men and women. Wooden 
hand pumps were set on street corners, several blocks apart, 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



41 



for the convenience of those who could not afford to pay 
for water at their doors. It was not until July -i, 1812, that 




Courtesy of H.\ 



THE MANHATTAN RESERVOIR 
Chambers Street, East of Broadway (1840). 

Croton water was let into the new reservoir, and on October 
11th following, Croton was distributed to houses.* 

The Tontine Association Founded in 1790.— The Ton- 
tine Coffee House, a memorable place on Wall Street, was 
erected in 1791, and was built to provide a suitable place for 
merchants to meet, and for upwards of thirty years it filled 
the requirement. The first floor was one long room, and the 
prominent merchants of the town gathered there in the even- 
ing to sip their coffee or beer, and while the smoke from their 
pipes was curling around, plans for another day's operations 
were made. Most of the auctions were held in front of the 
Tontine. It was a favorite place for important public meet- 
ings when matters of vital importance were at stake. A voice 

* It is expected that when the supply of water from the enormous 
Esopus water shed that is now nearing completion (1913) is avail- 
able, 250,000,000 gallons of water can be supplied the city dailj^ The 
maximum depth of the water behind the dam will be 155 feet. It will be 
conveyed to the city through one of the longest tunnels in the world — over 
seventeen miles long.) 



43 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



from the Tontine was sure to be heard with respect. Many 
of the wisest Charities of the city were created there, and 
so were banks and corporations. It served their purposes 
until 1S25, and long remained one of the landmarks of the 
town. The fund for its construction was raised by life annui- 
ties, the whole to revert to the survivor on the Tontine plan. 
In 1876 the final settlement was made. 




(Courtesy of Harper &f Brothers.) 

THE TONTINE COFFEE HOUSE, 
Wall Street. Erected 1794. 

Samuel Wood worth, who is now only rememl^ered as the 
author of the "Old Oaken Bucket," in early days had a printing 
office in A\^all Street. 

Beginning of the Adams Express Company, — Mr, Alvin 
Adams, who lived in AVall Street in 18J:0, started the business 
that grew into the Adams Express Company, by carrying par- 
cels with his own hands. 

No, 1 Broadway, — Quite a bit of interesting history is con- 
nected with No, 1 Broadway, What was known as the old 
Kennedy House was erected there in 1760 by Hon, Captain 
Kennedy, afterwards Earl of Cassilis. The site was pur- 
chased by Captain Kennedy in 1756 for 600 pounds Colonial 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 43 

money. During the Revolution it was occupied by a Mrs. 
Loring, as a very exclusive and elegant boarding house. 
Among its distinguished guests living or visiting there were 
Generals Cornwallis, Clinton, Howe, and Washington, Sir Guy 
Carlton and the Duke of Clarence, afterwards William the 
Fourth. Here Andre commenced his correspondence with 
Arnold. Here, says Dr. Francis, John Pintard held an in- 
teresting conversation with Andre on their respective claims 
to Huguenot blood. Sir Henry Clinton was the next per- 
manent tenant until about 1810, when it was purchased for 
35,000 dollars by Nathaniel Prime, head of the large bank- 
ing house of Prime, Ward & King. The property passed 
through several hands until 1881, when it was bought by 
Cyrus W. Field for IGI.OOO dollars, the deed being taken 
over in the name of Bryant Lindley and the property held 
in trust l)y me (Robert E. Dietz) until Air. Field accpiired 
a small parcel adjoining, when it was transferred to Mr. 
Field and resold by him, shortly after, for 350,000 dollars. 
A year later, the old Iniilding on it, formerly the W^ashington 
Hotel, was replaced 1)y the AA'ashington office Ijuilding. 

Note.- — In connection with another famous Broadway site 
the following, in the New York Sun of August 31, 1913, is 
of interest : 

" 26 Broadway Once Grog Shop. 

Sale of Licjuids Seems to Have Always Followed That 

Property." 

Trading in liquids of some kind seems t<o have always been 
associated with the property at 2() Broadway, known the 
world over as the headcjuarters of the Standard Oil Com- 
pany. For years it has been the home of this most powerful 
corporation. 

If we go back a century or more we will find that liquids 
were sold at 26 Broadway, but it was not oil. l)ut rum. In 
the City Directory of 1786 will be found an advertisement 
extolling the "excellent rum" that might be had at 26 Broad- 
way. It was one of the first licensed grog shops in the city." 

At that time New York had a population of 24,000. Forty- 
two were lawyers, among whom was the name of Aaron Burr. 



44 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Grandfather's Glue Works. — Shortly after the year 1810, as 
the neighborhood about the glue works of my Grandfather 
John Joachim Dietz, in Magazine Street, became more settled, 
the unpleasant odors from manufacturing the glue caused 
many complaints. Although he had a legal right to remain 
there, he was advised by his attorney to remove further out of 
town, and in order to avoid possible litigation, he moved the 
glue works to Laurence (now Wooster) Street, near Spring 
Street, where he had previously established a tannery, and 
where the glue works remained until about the year 1833. The 
great philanthropist, Peter Cooper, succeeded him in the glue 
business, which was the foundation of Mr. Cooper's great 
wealth. 

In the old glue works' ledger of my grandfather, kept in 
the years 180!), 1810 and 1811, the entries are extended in 
pounds, shillings and pence, showing that figuring in dollars 
had not then l)ecome general. 

Grandfather's Home. — Shortly after the year 1810, my 
grandfather Dietz erected a home on what is now Spring 
Street, between Broadway and Crosby Street, and lived there 
until about the year 1883. From there he moved to the Mole- 
naor homestead in Harlem, two of A\"illiam Molenaor's sons 
having married daughters of his. The Molenaor family at that 
time were large land holders in Harlem. 

Doctor William Molenaor, who married my aunt Mary 
Elizabeth Dietz, and who died in 1813, had a farm in Harlem 
of al:)OUt 300 acres, and as near as I can recall, it was bounded 
on the north by what is now 13Tth Street; on the east by 
Mount Morris Park; on the south by 119th Street, and on 
the west by the old Bloomingdale Road. The old Molenaor 
barn, built more than 100 years ago, still stands at this writ- 
ing (1891), just southwest of the Hamilton Hotel, at the 
southwest corner of Eighth Avenue and 135th Street. 

My grandparents (John Joachim Dietz and wife) died in 
the old Molenaor homestead, a stone dwelling that stood on 
Harlem Lane about one hundred feet or more south of this 
barn (present location St. Nicholas Avenue, near 131th 
Street). The house was surrounded, in 1835 or '-10, with 
fruit trees; and still further to the south was a beautiful 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 45 

old apple orchard, which was destroyed by the Harlem Canal 
Company. 

Harlem Lane, south of 125th Street, now St. Nicholas Ave- 
nue, was just to the west of the house, and a half-mile race 
course was laid out on the farm near Mount Morris Park, 
which existed up to about the year 1836. 

Harlem Canal. — About the year 1826 or '27, a company 
planned to build a canal from the East River to the Hudson 
River. It was to start at about what is now 108th Street 
and the East River, and follow a creek that began there, and 
run northwesterly through the lowland toward Eighth Ave- 
nue and 12-i:th Street. A stone lock was built at the mouth 
of this creek on the East River. 

The canal ran through the Molenaor apple orchard to the 
south of the house (about 120th Street), and two rows of 
valuable trees were removed, which destroyed the orchard. 
David W. Molenaor (son of William) finally sold the farm 
to the Canal Company, but as he only had a life interest in 
the property it left a cloud on the title. 

The canal, however, was never completed, although dug, 
or partly dug, in short sections. These sections later filled 
with rain water and the boys used to catch quantities of 
gold fish there. The stone lock that was built at the east 
end of the canal was covered with earth when the shore 
line of the East River was extended at that point. 

My father's sister Catherine was married to David W. 
Molenaor, and another sister, Mary Elizabeth, was married 
to his brother, Doctor William Molenaor. 

Note.— At this writing (1913) there is but one son of David 
W. Molenaor living. 

While Molenaor was the true name, it was changed to 
Miller while the English held New York, to make it appear 
more like the English; but when they signed a deed for prop- 
erty they signed the name of Molenaor, and always after 
retained the name. 

In the family Bible of the Meinells is recorded : "Catherine 
(Miller) Molenaor, married to Charles W\irner Gordon, Dec. 
5, 1807." 



46 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



My uncle, James Meinell, who came to this country from 
England with his parents, in 1798, and who early in life 
amassed a comfortable fortune in the leather business in the 
section of the city then known as the "Swamp," was one of 
the originators of a Pigeon Shooting Club, known as the "Red 
House," located on Second Avenue, between One Hundred 




{From a daguerreotype taken about the year 1845,) 

JAMES MEINELL. 

and Tenth and One Hundred and Thirteenth Streets, and 
named after the well known house and grounds for pigeon 
shooting near London, England. 

James Meinell had a fine country seat at Jerusalem, South 
Long Island, where he spent most of his summers. He de- 
ceased at his home on Fifth Avenue on July 3, 1865, aged 
eighty years. 

Prior to 1850, the "Red House" was converted into a hotel, 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



47 



and Lew Rogers, a man well known among the horsemen of 
those days, was its proprietor. A trotting track was laid out 
on the grounds, and it then became the headquarters for horse- 
men. It was here that the great trotting mare, "Flora Tem- 
ple," trotted her first public race, in the summer of 1850, and 
in 1859 she gained her record of 2,19;^. 




LEW ROGERS. 
Proprietor of the "Red House," New York City— 1850. 

Old City Markets.— Until the year 1815, the old Oswego 
Market, more familiarly known as "Old Swago," stood on the 
corner of Broadway and Alaiden Lane. 

In 1817, the City authorized the construction of market 
buildings where Fulton Market now stands. The new mar- 
ket was first opened for business in lS-21. Fulton ^larket is 
one of the City's historic landmarks, and it succeeded the old 
Dutch "Vleigh Market", commonly known as "Fly Market" 
"Vleigh" is the Dutch word for valley. It was situated at the 



48 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




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A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



49 



corner of Maiden Lane and Front Street. That section of the 
city was then considered a valley. The early Dutch settlers 
purchased their food supplies at the "Vleigh Market" as far 
back as 1699. As years went on, this famous trading place 
lost its original title and became known as "Valley Market". 

Birthplace of Robert E. Dietz. — I (Robert E. Dietz) am 
a native of New York City. I was born on January 5, 1818, 




(Courtesy tj P. F. Collier & Son, Inc.) 

WEST SIDE OF BROADWAY 
Corner of Spring Street, 1820. 

in what is now Spring Street, in a house built there by my 
grandfather, John Joachim Dietz. I was the third son of a 
family of ten, seven boys and three girls. The above cut 
shows what Spring Street at Broadway looked like about the 
time of my birth . 

The "Savannah" and the "Imperator." — The first steam- 
ship to cross the Atlantic from this city was the "Savannah," 
in the year 1819. It required twenty-two days to make the 
trip. 

Note. — Ninety-four years after the "Savannah's" voyage, on 
June 11, 1913, the "Imperator," the biggest ship afloat, belong- 
ing to the Hamburg American Line, left Hamburg for New 
York and steamed away from Cherbourg breakwater at 9 :-15 
P. M. on June 12. This, her maiden voyage, was made in 6 
days, 9 hours and 5,5 minutes to the Ambrose Channel Light- 
ship, where she arrived just before midnight. She came up 



50 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

fpom quarantine in the morning, and was made fast to her 
piers in Hoboken on Thursday morning, June 19, at exactly 
11 o'clock. 

Capt. Hans Ruser, Commodore of the four Captains in 
command, heaved a sigh of relief when the last cable made 
the "Queen of the Sea" fast in her berth. 

This ship is almost a fifth of a mile long, her actual meas- 
urement being 919 feet. She is 98 feet beam at her broadest 
point. 

Her officers and her 3,500 passengers lauded the great liner's 
performance. 

Although she had 350 stokers when, on June 15, the big 
boat was put under pressure, a passenger stated that the 
stokers began to give out. The stokehole became short- 
handed and husky men in the second cabin and steerage 
were hired for the remainder of the trip. Fifty of them, it 
was said, made the expense of their trip in this fashion. 

Officers declared that the ship would take back a comple- 
ment of at least 100 stokers on the return trip. 

Her biggest run was on June 15 when she logged 550 miles. 
Her average speed was 21.13 knots per hour. 

Her crew numbers 1,180 men, selected from the other ves- 
sels of the Line, and in the serving personnel of the vessel 
there are 500 men. These deal with the preparation and dis- 
tribution of the food. For her present trip she was well pro- 
vided. She shipped in Hamburg 18,500 lbs. of fresh meats, 
48,000 eggs and 121,000 lbs. of potatoes. 

The larder also was enlarged by a supply of 27,500 lbs. of 
fresh vegetables and 6,000 tins of canned vegetables. And, 
besides such incidentals as sugar, tea, cofifee and the like, she 
started with 10,050 lbs. of fowl and game as well as 9,000 lbs. 
of fish and shell food, some 800 lbs. of mushrooms being a nec- 
essary accompaniment to these delicacies. Her special 
refrigerating rooms also held 12,500 qts. of milk and cream 
to go in the 100 lbs of tea, the 500 lbs. of chocolate, and the 
7,000 lbs. of coft'ee. 

To set the tal:)le that these amounts of food may l)e eaten 
with all propriety, the linen closet of the "Imperator" is no 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 51 

small affair. It contains J:5,;jU0 napkins, 13,000 waiters' nap- 
kins, as well as 2,000 linen covers. In this closet are also 
30,000 towels and 9, TOO sheets. It is estimated that the linen 
of the "Imperator" cost about $50,000. 

She has the most complete equipment for navigation that 
ever went to sea. The system of compasses, for instance, 
comprises some ten units, which are distrilnited throughout 
the vessel so that none may be affected by the others. Her 
signal system, perfect in every detail is in duplicate, and the 
life-saving equipment and wireless are adequate. 

There is only one thing about the "Imperator" which re- 
mains in question and that is just how to pronounce her 
name. "Imperator," with its four syllables and four vowels, 
offers a great leeway to dialects and the accent may be dis- 
tributed in many ways. 

The "Imperator" is the first vessel to have a Commodore 
and four Captains. Her size renders it impossil)le to be con- 
trolled by one officer, as is the case with the largest liners 
now in the transatlantic service. 

The day is divided into eight-hour watches, and one of the 
three captains is always on the bridge. The fourth is a junior 
captain, and is the "office manager" of the ship. He is re- 
sponsible for everything inside the ship, and no one of the 
bridge captains has to bother with any other consideration 
than the operation of the ship. 

The masts of this huge liner are 246 feet high, while her 
bridge is 90 feet above the water line. 

The new ship has the most powerful wireless apparatus 
on the seas, and is calculated to be able to communicate 
with land, no matter what her position is. She has three 
wireless operators. 

To keep in touch with what is going on during the voyage, 
the "Imperator's" passengers can read the ship's daily news- 
paper, turned out in an up-to-date newspaper plant. 

This sea-going sheet has its staff of reporters, telegraphic 
news service, editors and copy readers, and a circulation that 
promises to be large on some voyages. Considering that the 



52 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

liner carries more than 4,0U0 persons, the marine newspaper 
should not want for readers. 

It is estimated that the large suites on the "Imperator," 
some of which have as many as twelve rooms, would bring 
over $3,000 a year, were they in an apartment house in one 
of New York's fashionable districts. The imperial suite on 
the "Imperator" comprises twelve rooms, and has a private 
veranda deck, which assures the wealthy traveler of privacy. 
This suite has three large bedrooms, each with a bath, 
trunk-rooms, breakfast room, a pantry, a salon, two servant's 
rooms and quarters for the dog, in case the latter is too select 
to mingle with the other four-legged travelers in the luxurious 
kennels on "A" deck. 

The conventional ship's berths, which have long been the 
bane of many a seagoer's life, are not to be found on the 
"Imperator," the comfortable brass bed having been substi- 
tuted. Each stateroom is equipped with every convenience 
that could be found in the most up-to-date hotel. 

Those tired of eating in the regular dining-room may have 
an interesting experience by dining in either the Ritz-Carlton 
restaurant, the grill room or the veranda cafe. 

A Full Beard. — Prior to the year 1820, a full beard was 
almost unknown here. Occasionally, a native of an Eastern 
countrv would appear on the street wearing a beard, and as 
such an exhibition was a rarity, the wearer would be an ob- 
ject of general attention, even to being followed about by 
boys. 

About the year 1835, there appeared on Broadway a mys- 
terious person of swathy skin and Hebrew features, with 
glossy hair and beard as "black' as the raven's wing" — always 
dressed in a suit of clothes quite as black as his full beard and 
as fashionable and genteel as a tailor could make it. He 
walked the streets during the fashionable hours; and with a 
firm step and confidential bearing gave back glance for glance 
to the beauties of that day who gazed upon his well barbered 
hair and full beard which, at that period, was a source of 
wonder, as he was the only one in the city who allowed his 
hair to grow as nature intended. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 53 

He lectured occasionally on ancient rites and Biblical sub- 
jects and a peculiarity of his notices of the time and place of 
the lectures would be that the fee for admission would be 
"fifty cents or half a dollar." 

He was one of the most observed men of his day on New 
York's great thoroughfare, and mart of fashion. 

The writer of this, at that time, visited St. Thomas's Church 
occasionally, at the corner of Broadway and Houston Street 
(since removed to Fifth Avenue) and saw Mr. Nazaro enter 
the church, ascend to the gallery and take his seat at the farth- 
est end facing the whole assembled people. There soon was a 
buzz of whispering among the worshippers which disconcerted 
the preacher, and the sexton or usher took it upon himself 
to request Mr. N. to leave the place he occupied. Mr. Nazaro 
was indignant and loudly protested that he would not retire — 
that he came to worship God and insisted on his rights to do 
so, but the sexton and others thought otherwise, and they took 
hold of him by his legs and arms and carried him out of the 
church like a huge black spider which spat its venom upon 
his assailants for their unceremonious ejection from God's 
holy edifice. I think the morning service was intentionallv 
brief on this account. 

Where the Seventh Regiment Was Organized. — On the 

southwest corner of Fulton and Nassau Streets is the site 
of the old Shakespeare Tavern. It was here that the Seventh 
Regiment was organized in 1824. 

Fuel Used Prior to 1830.— Prior to 1830, wood was the chief 
fuel used in this city. Coal was brought from Liverpool 
and Newcastle, but was little used except in the parlor grates 
of the wealthy. Anthracite coal was introduced into furnaces 
during the winter of 1820, but did not come into general use 
in New York until 1830. 

"Five Points." — In early days, "Five Points" was a place 
where all the evil passions had their playground. It was at 
the intersection of Baxter, Park and Worth Streets. "Five 
Points" is now a thing of the past, a public park having taken 
its place. 



54 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



55 



I was well acquainted with Ex-Mayor Daniel F, Tiemann, 
whose house stood in West 12Tth Street, just a short dis- 
tance to the east of General Grant's tomb, one of the most 
picturesque and impressive memorials in the world. 




EX-MAYOR DANIEL F. TIEMANN'S HOME, 
127th Street, West of Broadway — 1890. 

By a close examination of the above picture of Ex-Mayor 
Tiemann's home, a carriag'e and pair of horses will be seen 
in the foreground. The carriage contains three old New 
Yorkers : 

Robert E. Dietz, occupying the front seat, was born in 
Spring Street on January 5, 1818; deceased September 19, 



56 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

1897. William Callender, one of the occupants of the rear 
seat, was born in Burling Slip, on September 6, 1807; de- 
ceased April 7, 1891. Daniel F. Tiemann, the other occu- 
pant of the rear seat, was born in Nassau Street, near Beek- 
man, on January 9, 1805; deceased June 29, 1897. 

Mr. Tiemann resided in the above house for more than 
fifty years. The grounds surrounding the house originally 
contained seven acres and extended to the Hudson River. 
The yearly tax on the property at first was but $<0 per year. 
In 1890 there was left but a very small portion of the original 
parcel. His yearly tax on what remained was then about 
$7,000 per year. 

Mr. Tiemann was a picturesque figure, and he lived to 
be nearly ninety-three years of age. He was in active busi- 
ness when General Jackson was inaugurated as President 
of the United States. He was engaged in the manufacture 
of colors and oils, as was his father before him. As a boy, 
Daniel F. Tiemann fished in the stream that ran through 
Canal Street, and skated on the "Collect" Pond. He saw 
the first railroad enter this city, and saw Central Park laid 
out. In 1857, he was elected Mayor, defeating Fernando 
Wood. He inaugurated the first reform administration. 

He was educated in the old German Lutheran Church, at 
Frankfort and William Streets, and as a boy, at the age of 
thirteen, he started to work for the drug firm of W. H. Schief- 
felin & Co. 

When acting as President of the Board of Aldermen, he 
checked the sale of licjuor in the City Hall. He originated 
the plan to have the street names put on lamp posts. 

In 1871, he defeated Harry Genet for the State Senator- 
ship and served one term. He was a member of the Cham- 
ber of Commerce, the New York Historical Society, the St. 
Nicholas Society, and a Trustee of Cooper Union from the 
time it was originated. His wife was a niece of Peter Cooper. 

Mr. William Callender resided in this city all his life, and 
died at his home in Harlem, on 126th Street, at the ripe 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 57 

old age of eighty-four years. He was the oldest member of 
the old Cedar Street Presbyterian Church. 

As an executor of his father's estate he sold to Peter 
Cooper the home in which he was born, 29 Burling Slip. 

Various Interesting Facts.— In was not until the year 1831 
that India rubber overshoes appeared. They were then called 
"gum shoes." 

In 1831, Delmonico Bros.' restaurant was opened in Wil- 
liam Street. It was the first restaurant to employ female 
cashiers. 

John Stephenson, the Man Who Built the First Street Rail- 
road Car.— The first street railroad in the world was the New 
York and Harlem. It was incorporated in the year 1831 with a 
capital of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and John 
Mason, of the Chemical Bank, was its president. 

John Stephenson was employed to design and construct 
a vehicle for this road, of an entirely original type, calcu- 
lated purely for street-car work, which he did. It was named 
the "John Mason," and was the first street-car ever built. 
It was accepted by the company and used when the road 
was opened, November 26, 1832, on which occasion it car- 
ried the Mayor, Walter Bowne, and the Common Council 

of the city. 

Mr Stephenson was awarded a patent for this car, which 
was signed bv Andrew Jackson, President of the United 
States; Edward Livingston, Secretary of State; R. B. Taney, 
Attorney General, and John Campbell. Treasurer. 

John Stephenson was born in Ireland on July 4, 1809. 
He was of mixed English and Scotch ancestry. He was 
but two years old when his parents arrived here in 1811. He 
received his education in the Wesleyan Seminary in this city. 
When nineteen, he was apprenticed to Andrew A\ ade, a 
coach-maker, at 347 Broome Street. In 1831 he obtained 
a business opening through Abram Brower, a stable-keeper, 
at 661 Broadwav, the pioneer in the Broadway stage busi- 
ness Mr Brower had been for four years running "accom- 
modation" stages from the corner of Broadway and Bleecker 



58 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Street, then far uptown, to Wall Street, the fare being one 
shilling. 

Brower one day suggested to young Stephenson that he 
open a shop of his own, promising him all of his business 
and offering him a location at 6G7 Broadway, adjoining the 
rear of Brewer's stables, which were on ]\Iercer Street. 
Stephenson accepted the oft'er, and on May 1, 1831, began 
business. It was there he designed and built the first Broad- 
way stage, known as an "omnibus." (See illustration, oppo- 
site page.) 

On March 29, 1832, a fire destroyed the Brower stables, 
and with them Mr. Stephenson's shop and all his stock, on 
which there was no insurance. 

He then started at 261 Elizabeth Street, and in 1836 built 
a factory at Fourth Avenue and 12'Jth Street, where he 
branched out extensively in the building of railway cars, and 
was doing a large and increasing business when the panic 
of 1837 struck the country, which caused his failure and 
the loss of all his property. He was able to pay his creditors 
but 50 cents on the dollar. He was still, however, a young 
man, and he started again in 1813, at Fourth Avenue and 
Twenty-seventh Street, where he built up a very large and 
extensive business, and began to pay off his creditors, one 
by one, as fast as he was able, the remaining 50 cents; but 
one of his creditors, Jordan L. Mott, stubbornly refused to 
accept his debt, telling Stephenson that his failure had been 
an honest one, and that his indebtedness was legally and 
morally wiped out by the bankruptcy proceedings. Stephen- 
son could not force Mott to take the money, but later, when 
Mott ordered a truck from Stephenson, the latter built it 
and delivered it according to orders, and then sent the bill to 
Mott endorsed, "Received payment by bankruptcy debt. 
John Stephenson." It was Mott, then, who could not force 
Stephenson to accept the money, and he got square by hitch- 
ing up four horses to the truck and having it driven up 
and down Broadway bearing a huge placard informing the 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



59 




ClH 



pa tu 



■^ CO 

o '^ 






60 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

pu])lic of "The way one bankrupt pa3's his debts. His name 
is Honest John Stephenson." 

Stephenson was well known in New York before that, and 
he was not any less known after it. Among old-time New 
Yorkers, no one asked a better bond than John Stephenson's 
word for all the money he wanted. His stages or street-cars 
could be seen in almost every civilized country in the world. 

The First Sunday School. — \\nien the first Sunday school 
in New York was started by Airs. David Bethune and Mrs. 
Mary Mason in Public School No. 1, on the corner of Chat- 
ham Street and Tyron Row, about the year 1816, Mr. 
Stephenson became deeply interested in the work and con- 
tinued so during his life. In his later years he taught a 
Bible class. He was always devoted to music ; was a choir 
leader for forty years before his death, and for thirty years 
his choir consisted of forty young people selected from his 
Sunday school. 

R. E. Dietz Apprenticed. — In 1833, after receiving the com- 
mon school education of those days, and having arrived at 
the age of fifteen years, I (Robert E. Dietz) was placed by 
my parents to learn the carpenter's trade with a friend of the 
family named Cornelius McLean. Although I was mechani- 
cally inclined, I did not like the business. A few months 
taught me that carpenter work, as done in those days, was 
hard work and small pay, and I left Mr. McLean and obtained 
a situation v/ith Mr. C. R. Taylor, a fishing tackle and sport- 
ing goods dealer, at No. 1^ Maiden Lane. I remained with 
Mr. Taylor until he failed. I then found a place with the 
hardware house of Cornell, Althause & Co., on Broadway, 
near Howard Street. 

Spirit Gas. — About the year 1831 I became acquainted with 
a Mr. Jennings, who had discovered a process of mixing 
equal parts of spirits of turpentine and pure alcohol, to pro- 
duce a liquid as bright and clear as spring water, which, 
being burned in a lamp with a burner invented by himself, 
gave a light of great purity and beauty, which he named 
"spirit gas." 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 61 

I became greatly interested in this new artificial light, 
and strove to ascertain the properties and proportions of 
"spirit gas." but succeeded only in making a poor substitute, 
called 'Mnirning fluid," which, burned in a cone-shaped tube 
with an ordinary wick, gave only mild light compared with 
the "spirit gas." 

New York's First Large Sewer.— During the year 1834 the 
first large sewer in New York was built. It ran from Centre 
Street tlirough Canal Street to the Hudson River. 

New York's Great Fire.— A great fire occurred in New 
York on the night of December 16, 1835. It broke out at 
9 o'clock at night and originated in Comstock & Andrews' 
dry goods store, corner of Pearl and Merchants Streets. The 
night was extremely cold, the temperature being 10 degrees 
be!ow zero. The cisterns on which the Fire Department 
then depended for their water supply were frozen, and the 
East River and Long Island Sound were frozen over. The 
old goose-neck type of hand engines, used in those days, were 
of but little use. The fire quickly got beyond control, and 
Colonel Smith, of the Navy Yard, was called on. AVith the 
assistance of marines, Colonel Smith blew up buUdmgs m 
the path of the fire, and the conflagration, after ragmg for 
nearly twenty-four hours, was finally checked. This fire, 
in one night, put all the insurance companies out of busi- 
ness with the exception of two, and they were badly crip- 
pled The fire extended from Maiden Lane to Coenties Slip, 
and, roughly speaking, from William Street to the East 
River, touching portions that ran up as far as West Broad- 
way. The space covered was estimated at about thirty acres; 
671 buildings and warehouses were destroyed, with a total 
loss of over 17,000,000 dollars. 

First John Jacob Astor.-The first John Jacob Astor. who 
did much toward the development of this city, was born in 
1763 in the village of Waldorf, in Baden. He was the son 
of a butcher, and the youngest of four brothers. It is said 
the ill usage of his stepmother drove him from his home in 
Waldorf, Germany. At the age of sixteen he set gut on 



62 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

foot for the Rhine, worked his passage down that river on 
a timber raft, and when he arrived in London he obtained 
employment with his eldest brother, where he remained for 
three years, acquiring English and putting by some scanty 
savings for the time when he should be able to realize a 
project upon which his thoughts were fixed — that of going 
to America. 

After the treaty by which the independence of the United 
States was acknowledged by Great Britain in September, 
1783, young Astor expended one-third of his savings for a 
f)assage on a vessel bound from London for Baltimore. He 
crossed the Atlantic in midwinter, and the ship on which 
he sailed became ice-bound in Chesapeake Bay from January 
until March, and it was here that Astor gained his first 
knowledge about furs from a fellow-passenger who had built 
up a profitable business in furs and skins in America. He 
told Astor how he had bargained for skins of fur-bearing 
animals, with the Indians, and explained that for a few 
trinkets they could be secured and resold with great profit. 
Astor stored up this knowledge. He landed in Baltimore 
in March, IT 84, and from there made his way to New York, 
where he secured a clerkship in the fur store of Robert 
Bowne, in Gold Street, where he earned two dollars per week, 
and remained there until he gained an expert knowledge of 
skins. 

The following summer he made his first trip to the fur 
country to purchase a cargo of pelts for his employer, and 
in 1T86 young Astor started business for himself, in a little 
store in Water Street, with a few hundred dollars, part of 
which his brother had loaned him. 

Having but limited capital, he was obliged to do all his 
own work, but he prospered, and at the end of four years 
he married. His wife not only brought him a small dowry, 
but she had a genius for affairs rivaling his own, and his 
business grew by leaps and bounds, and it was but a few 
years until he chartered a vessel and shipped a cargo of skins 
to London, which were sold to great advantage. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



63 



He soon moved to larger quarters in Vesey Street, and 
had a warehouse on Greenwich Street, and in 180!), when 
he arrived at the age of forty-six, he organized the Ameri- 
can Fur Company, with posts extending from St. Louis to 
the Pacific. He was the leading merchant in the city, and 
was considered the richest man in America and the most 
daring real estate operator. In his early business career he 
began to invest two-thirds of his gains in real estate on 




OLD ASTOR HOUSE, 
Broadway, Barclay and Vesey Streets, New York, Closed 1913- 

Manhattan Island, much of which was acreage property. The 
farms that he bought in the city, in those early days, have 
gone far towards swelling the Astor estate to the four hun- 
dred million mark. 

The block front on Broadway, between Vesey and Barclay 
Streets, where the Astor House now stands, was originally 
a part of a farm that extended from Broadway to the Hud- 
son River. Astor purchased a part of this block front on 
Broadway in 1800. The Astor House, which now covers it, 
was built during the year 1835 on the site of his home. 



64 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

When the Astor House was built some people consid£red 
it was too far uptown to be a success. It was opened the 
year following, and soon became a centre of the nation's 
activities. There was nothing like it in the country, and 
people came from far and near to see it. It long remained 
a resort of the ultra-fashionable set. 

Note. — The following, which appeared in the New York 
"Times" of May 11, 1913, is of interest in connection with the 
famous old hotel : 

"Old Astor House to Close Its Doors After 77 Years ; Famous 
Hostelry AVhich Has Sheltered Some of the Best-Known 
Men of This and Other Countries May Never Open for 
Business Again After the 29th of This Month. 

The doors of the old Astor House, through which during 
a large part of the nineteenth century passed most of the 
wise and great and fashionable folk of this country, will be 
closed with the coming of Thursday, May 29th. Few believe 
that it will ever be opened again, for the diggers of the sub- 
way are to Ijurrow beneath its ancient foundations, and the 
wiseacres say that the Astor must go. So passes the hostelry 
which in its heyday was the most famous and the most mag- 
nificent on this continent. It is to close exactly seventy-five 
years after the formal opening on June 1, 1836, when the 
"palais royal." the fruit of the wealth and ambition of the 
first John Jacob Astor, was dedicated to an admiring public. 

Since that day its dining-rooms and corridors have been 
hallowed by the presence of America's best. Irving and 
Hawthorne made it their headquarters in New York. Web- 
ster always stopped at the Astor House. Lincoln put up 
there when he came to town to deliver his Cooper Union 
speech. From its portals Jenny Lind, flushed with her great 
triumph, smiled and bowed her acknowledgments to the jubi- 
lant crowd that had banished the horses from her carriage 
and dragged it from Castle Garden to her hotel. Castle Gar- 
den, now the Aquarium, has long been the home of fishes, 
and lenny Lind's hotel is to be closed with the coming of 
May '29 th. 

The Astor House stands on the west side of Broadway 
in the block between Barclay and Vesey Streets. We think 
of it as far downtown, but the friends of John Jacob Astor 
told him it was absurd to build his hotel on such a spot. 

"It can never be a success," they warned him. "It is alto- 
gether too far uptown," for in the early thirties there was 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 65 

a forest at Fourteenth Street, and along the edge of the 
thoroughfare known as Chambers Street there stretched 
a fine cornfield. All around the new Astor House were 
the best homes of the city. Columbia College was a 
beautiful green place ; the Stevenses and other rich folk 
lived thereabout; the lower part of Greenwich Street and 
all of State Street were fashionable quarters. City Hall 
Park, across the way, was a charming grove, sentineled 
at the lower gate, where to-day the Post-Office lingers, 
by two high posts of masonry, on which were huge stone 
balls, said to have been brought from Athens or some other 
ancient Greek city. Beekman. Cliff, and other East Side 
streets were also filled with the "best people." Gas was 
comparatively new, and Croton had not crossed the Harlem 
River. The Harlem was the only railroad in the city, and 
that stopped at Broome Street and the Bowery, and had 
no city cars. There were sixteen wards in the city with a 
population of about 270,000. Brooklyn numbered less than 
30,000. 

77 Years Ago. 

When the Astor opened, the special excitement of the city 
was the murder of the beautiful Helen Jewett and the trial 
of Richard P. Robinson, which was commenced a few days 
after the Astor opened. Justice was prompt then, says a 
commentator of '75. The murder was done on the loth of 
April, and Robinson was acquitted on June 8th, two months 
later. Another excitement was a long struggle to elect a 
President of the Board of Aldermen. There were eight 
Whigs and eight Democrats, and two months were used up 
in vain balloting. Those were great days. 

There has always been considerable speculation as to just 
why Astor built the hotel at all, for it involved at the time 
the monstrous expenditure of more than $300,000. Some 
have said that he was moved to construct it by the example 
of Holt's Hotel, at Pearl and Fulton Streets, a great success 
at the start, but later a dismal failure, so that it became 
known disrespectfully as "Holt's Tower," "Holt's Pyramid." 
and "Holt's Folly." Its drawback was its height, for it was 
the tallest public'^house in America. Passenger elevators were 
unknown in those days, though Holt's Hotel did boast of some- 
thing very like an elevator for lifting baggage, a steam engme 
taking up a guest's trunk, "and its owner, too, if he chose," 
to quote from a journal of that day. But for the first two 
years after its opening, in 1833, Holt's Hotel was liberally 
patronized, and much talked of. Stephen Holt, a victualer of 
Fulton Market, had long cherished the ambition to own a 



66 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

hotel, and the six years of its contemplation were spent by 
his good wife in plying her needle to have the linen stores 
in readiness. An old newspaper tells of her work — 1,500 
towels, 500 pairs of sheets, 500 pairs of pillow cases, 250 bed- 
ticks, and 300 bright patchwork quilts. And this, be it re- 
membered, was not in the days of sewing machines. Though 
Holt's failed later, it was a glorious success at the time the 
Astor House was built, and some said the prosperous mer- 
chant had been moved to rivalry. 

Others have suggested that the hotel was to be a memorial 
monument to John Jacob Astor. Certainly there is no evi- 
dence that at that time he contemplated the Astor Library 
gift, which was not mentioned in the will drawn a few weeks 
after the Astor House was formally opened. This theory, 
however, has been discounted by the fact that in the first 
lease there was no stipulation that the new establishment 
was to be called the Astor House, and indeed it seems that 
the name originally contemplated was the Park Hotel, for 
that appears on an old print of the building, now hanging in 
the manager's office, and believed to have been designed from 
the architect's plans. 

The First Steps. 

Astor had long cherished the notion of building a fine hotel, 
and he spent many years in acquiring the land on which he 
finally erected it. Originally this was the site of the Bull's 
Head Tavern, a cozy inn of Knickerbocker days. Spreading 
trees gave grateful shade to its entrance, and beneath them 
mine host, Adam Vanderburgh, beamed as he served good 
drink to his approving patrons. 

The Bull's Head Tavern, or Drovers' Inn, gave way to 
fine homes, and one of them was owned by the fur mer- 
chant himself at least 100 years ago, for an issue of The 
New York Gazette for 1813 carried this advertisement : 

"To let, for one or more years, a pleasant situation and 
an excellent stand for a dry goods store, the corner house 
of Vesey Street and Broadway. Inquire of John Jacob 
Astor, corner of Pearl and Pine Streets." 

When the hotel plans developed, one by one Astor bought 
the other houses in that block, the one that had been John 
Rutherford's, the one that had belonged to Colonel Axtell, a 
British officer, and later was the home of Lewis Scott ; the 
house that was bought by Rufus King, who was in the Senate 
at Washington and was at one time Minister to England; 
Cornelius Roosevelt's house, and that of John G. Coster, for 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



67 



which Mr. Astor had to pay the preposterous sum of $60 000. 
Finally, however, they were all bought, and m the diary 
of his neighbor, Philip Hone, for the date of April 4 IS.U, 
appears this entry which refers to Mr. Astor, who had been 
abroad : 

-He comes in time to witness the pulling down of the 
block of houses next to that on which I live-the whole 
front from Barclay Street to Vesey on Broadway-where 
he is going to erect a New York 'palais royal,' ^vhlch will 
cost him five or six hundred thousand dollars. 

Three months after this diar)^ note-July 4. f^^'^^^y^^^^^^ 
the cornerstone of the hotel. It was an ^^'^^t; ^^J^\^^\^"{^^^ 
nresided the militia paraded on Broadwa> , and ^^Mh tne 
Neatest ceremony the^tone was put in p ace -rrymg with 
it the silver tablet that bore the names o Mr ^ \oj- and of 
Isaiah Rogers, the architect, ^ V'^''''%,f }^l^^l^,l^^^^^^^ 
name was then a name to conjure w th a icture ot r^ew 
York and copies of the newspapers of that day. 

Tt was two years in building, and then, on June 1, lb3b, 
it warthroTn'^ide to the public. For a ^f^^l^^^'^ 
its ooenino- the Astor House was a part of the histor>_ oi 
its countr;. It is woven into countless biographies. It is a 
Vimise of ereat memories. . n„,^^j 

The Dride that New York felt in this new hotel is reflected 
in a Inmdred ways. The journals of the thirties and forties 
c am it a'nTodel of architectural beauty, -^^l^ier 
ora deur, luxurious and elegant n its ^PP^^"^"^^";^;, • ^l^- 
?he head ng, '"A Small Family," there appeared this com 
placent nore in Mr. Greeley's New Yorker for November 25, 
1837 : 

''On Wednesday night 647 Pe^^°"^/^%j^ ^,','^' 
T4r.nse and bve the bye, were not crowded. How many 
^iTage'sTre ti^ere in tl'.is' country that make considerable 
show that do not contain this number. 



68 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

charmed life in all the changing years. To-day it is much 
the same as it was when Forest strode its corridors, rehears- 
ing at the top of his capacious lungs a Fourth of July decla- 
ration which he was to give at the Broadway Tabernacle, 
much the same as when Poe sauntered through the newly 
opened rotunda, gathering tidbits for Graham's Magazine, 
and pondering, so one tradition has it, the immortal intri- 
cacies of "Marie Roget." 

It would be impossible to chronicle all the great men who 
have stopped at the Astor House — or all the great women. 
The registers of the old hotel have borne the signatures of 
our immortals, and it is one of the tragedies that these were 
not preserved, but have been scattered, some to unappreci- 
ated places, some to paper mills. Most of the men who lived 
at the White House stopped at the hotel across from City 
Hall. Jackson, Pierce, Van Buren, Lincoln, Garfield, and 
nearly all the latter-day Presidents have been seen in the 
rotunda at the luncheon hour. They dined the Prince of 
Wales there, and the state rooms were put in readiness for 
the Grand Duke Alexis. From its steps Louis Kossuth bade 
his farewell to America, and on them Walt Whitman used 
to love to sun himself of a warm day. Jefiferson Davis, 
Greeley, Farragut, Porter, Winfield Scott, Jean Victor ]\Io- 
reau, Douglas, Seward, Choate, Alexander T. Stewart — these 
are some of the names. General Fremont stayed there with 
his family during the campaign of '55. 

In that same year Rachel was a guest at the Astor House, 
and went from there to the churchyard of St. Paul's across 
the street, there to do honor to the memory of George F. 
Cooke, the first star to come across the Atlantic for our enter- 
tainment. 

Of course, innumerable Astor House legends are not based 
on fact. There has been one hardy anecdote of its earliest 
days which pictured Hawthorne and Irving in the Astor 
House in 1837, fraternizing with Dickens and congratulating 
him on the success of "Sketches by Boz," an anecdote pain- 
fully at variance with the chronology of Dickens' life, but 
when he did come to this city in 1842 he must at least have 
sauntered into the Astor House, although on this, his first 
visit to America, he stopped at the Carlton House, and on 
his second he stayed at the Westminster Hotel in Irving 
Place. Certainly a committee meeting was held at the Astor 
to arrange for a monster demonstration in his honor. 

Probably the big name that is most closely associated with 
the Astor House is that of Daniel Webster. He would stay 
at no other hotel, and it has always been understood that 
he was suffered to pay no charge for his rooms, the finest 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 69 

suite in the house, which must needs be vacated immediately 
upon the appearance of the "Godlike," so dearly was he be- 
loved by Charles Stetson, the proprietor of Webster's day. 

A Memorable Interview. 

It was in this suite that \\'ebster was interviewed on that 
memorable night by the Southern Whigs who wanted to 
explain why they had deserted his standard in the Baltimore 
convention of '53. Webster had set his heart on the can- 
didacy that year, but he had only twenty-nine votes to com- 
pete with 131 for General Scott and 133 for Millard Filmore. 
The Webster delegates finally swung over to Scott, and Web- 
ster never forgave. He hurried to New York, and it was at 
the Astor House that the delegates found him. Stetson would 
not allow them near the sacred suite, but, as it happened, 
Calhoun and Silas \\^right were stopping at the Astor House 
that night, and at midnight they persuaded Stetson to give 
the Whigs admission. In his dressing-gown and slippers 
Webster met them at the door. Their spokesman did not 
have the chance to phrase a sentence. 

"Gentlemen," said Webster, "my public life is ended. I 
go to Marshfield to sleep with my fathers, carrying with me 
the consciousness of duty done. \Mien perilous times come 
to you, as come they will, you will mourn in bitterness of 
spirit your craven conduct and your base ingratitude. Gen- 
tlemen, I bid you good-night." 

Next day ^\>bster left for home, and the Astor House 
saw him no more. 

"Farewell, old friend," he said to Stetson, "we have known 
and loved each other for more than thirty years. You will 
find a little present from me in the office." 

Two weeks later Webster died, and ever after that the 
Webster suite was devoted to other purposes. Stetson 
turned two of the rooms into a ladies' dining hall and took 
the third for himself, saying that no stranger should have 
the rooms that A\>bster used. 

Clay was another favorite at the Astor House, and it was 
there that he stood by Frelinghuysen in '41 to hear the formal 
news of their nomination. There is a record of Clay's having 
been there when Fanny Ellsler was at the hotel and of his hav- 
ing gone from there to see her when she introduced "La Taran- 
telle." He was there, too, when Jenny Lind stopped at the 
Astor. The great singer had had her rooms reserved for her 
by P. T. Barnum himself, who was not only the manager of her 
appearance here at Castle Garden, but her proud escort on 
many occasions. There is one story of his helping her gal- 



70 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

lantly to her carriage in front of the Astor House when Clay- 
came down the steps, and Mr. Barnum introduced them. 
Barnum's Museum, by the way, was just across the street, and 
they tell of Thackeray standing on the Astor House steps and 
fairly revelling in the gorgeous picture display of Mr. Bar- 
num's enterprise — and fancy. 

The Head Waiter. 

One of the most interesting of the old employees at the 
Astor House is Albert C. Kaufmann, head waiter, who, for 
more than forty-four years has been connected with the estal)- 
lishment. Albert was saddest of them all when the notice of 
the closing was posted the other day. He has served the 
"cream of the country." His reminiscences are of great men 
and their appetites. He remem1)ers Grant's favorite talkie at 
the window overlooking St. Paul's and the General's weak- 
ness for roast beef. 

Chester A. Arthur preferred lamb chops ; Kaufmann says 
Cleveland's favorite was mutton chops, and Garfield always 
ordered roast beef. 

But the dinners served at the Astor House were not always 
individual meals. There were great dinners held there and 
served with a splendor that stirred wonder. One of the first 
on record was a sumptuous banquet in honor of the Prince 
de Joinville, given in 18-il by such gracious hosts as the 
City Fathers. There, too, they dined Lord Ashburton. The 
Astor House was headquarters for the relief committee in 
1850 that sent a party to the rescue of Sir John Franklin, 
lost in the Arctic. At the Astor the bachelors of the city 
gave their annual St. Valentine ball, a very elaborate affair. 

There has been a certain continuity in the proprietorship 
of the Astor House. When first opened it was under the 
management of Frederick Boyden, of the Tremont House 
in Boston. Charles A. Stetson was his clerk. Soon the two 
were in partnership with Robert B. Coleman, and later Stet- 
son's son succeeded to the managership. The 3'ounger Stet- 
son was more kindly than commercial, and in 1875 the hotel 
was under the Sherift''s hammer. 

It reopened in September of that year, with Flavins Allen 
in charge. Allen and his partner. Dam, took no chances. They 
ran the Astor House on a strictly cash basis. Every morning 
the chef was sent to market with so much cash to supply 
the larder. At the end of each day the partners opened the 
cash drawer, paid off the servants, and, after due division, 
pocketed the profits. At any time, Broadway said, they could 
have closed the hotel and gone out of business with a profit. 
After Allen's death he was succeeded by Mrs. Allen's nephew, 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 71 

Alfred H. Thurston, who has Ijcen at the head of the Astor 
House ever since. 

It has lived to see other hotels come and go. The Fifth 
Avenue, the old Metropolitan, the Everett, the Morton, the 
old St. James, the Ashland, the Sturtevant, the Colonnade— 
all_ these have long- been gone. The Astor still stands in its 
noisy,_ cluttered block opposite tlie general Post-Office, but 
the diggers of the subway are waiting to get to the sand 
beneath it." 

Note. — At this writing, December, 1913, the old Astor House is now 
being torn down. 

John Jacob Astor died in the year 1848, at the age of sixty- 
five, and in the same year the Astor Library was founded 
with the means provided by a munificent bequest in his will. 

First One-Cent Daily Paper. — The first one-cent daily paper 
to appear in New York City was the "Sun." It was edited 
by Benjamin H. Day at No. 22 AVilliam Street, and began 
puldication on September 3, 1833, and was sold by the first" 
newsboys who were hired to sell the papers. It was the first 
paper printed on a steam-power press. It did not give edi- 
torials or reports of stock sales. The "Sun" was a double- 
sheet paper, 9x11 inches, with three columns to a page. I 
have copy No. 1, dated Tuesday, September 3, 1833. I also 
have a later edition, dated Wednesda}-, Alay 28, 1831, No. 29, 
published by Benjamin H. Day and George W. Wisner. 

Horace Greeley, in partnership with H. D. Shepard and 
Francis V. Story, about this time, issued a daily paper, the 
"Alorning Post," price one cent, which had but a short exist- 
ence, living but for a period of three weeks. 

New York Herald and Its Founder. — The present New 
York "Plerald" was first published by James Gordon Bennett 
& Co., under the name of the "Herald," in 1835. James Gor- 
don Bennett, Sr., came to America from Scotland, in 1819. 
Before publishing the "Herald," Mr. Bennett was employed 
by Colonel West, publisher of the "Courier and Enquirer." 
He started as a reporter for eight dollars a week and con- 
tinued with them for several years. 

The "Herald's" first editorial sanctum was a room in the 
basement of No. 20 Wall Street. No. 1, Volume 1, of the 
"Herald" appeared on Wednesday, May 6, 1835. It was then 



72 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

a double-sheet paper, 13 x 19 inches, with five columns to a 
page ; price one cent. 

The newspaper "courtesy" of the time, as reflected in the 
"Herald," resulted in at least one personal encounter when 
James Watson Webl), of the "Courier and Enquirer," retali- 
ated for an attack upon himself in the "Herald," by assaulting 
Bennett in Wall Street, where he knocked him down. 

The first "Heralds" were sold in the basement of No. 20 
Wall Street, from a rude counter formed by a board resting 
on two empty barrels, and while Mr. Bennett wrote his edi- 
torials at one end of the counter, his customers would help ' 
themselves to a paper and lay down a penny in payment. 

I have No. 43 of Volume H of the "Herald," pul)lished in 
the Clinton Building, corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, 
on Thursday, April 28, 1836. Under heading "Public Amuse- 
ments," the "Franklin" is the only theatre advertised, the 
comedy for the evening being "Sweethearts and Wives." 
Doors open at 6 ; performance at a quarter to 7. Among other 
items are, "Success of Humbug," "The State Has Loaned 
the Erie Railroad Three Millions," "Philosophy of Living — 
Eat AMien you are Hungry, Drink AMien you are Thirsty, 
and Borrow No Money in Wall Street." 

The "Herald," at the start, was a sensational sheet, and 
many social gatherings of those days were astonished to read 
in the "Herald" a report of the sayings and doings of the 
previous evening. It was a terror to evil-doers. They were 
lashed with the scorpion lash of their own sins. It caused 
a lively time among the papers of those days when it made 
its appearance. I believe it was the first daily paper to puldish 
money articles. 

William H. Alltree was the editor's "right bower." He 
could report all the news of the day, and swear to its truth 
if disputed. As a specimen of the newspaper politeness of 
that day, the "Herald" used to refer to Horace Greeley as a 
"galvanized squash." 

On March 13, 1815, the "Herald's" first double sheet of 
eight pages was issued. The sale of daily papers, at this time, 
was growing rapidly, as was indicated by the "Herald's " 
sworn statement of its publication for the month of June, which 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 73 

was a daily average of 11,501, while the combined output of six 
other leading papers was 13,266. 

Note. — The "Herald," at the present time (1913) claims a 
daily circulation of 112,000, with Sunday edition running up 
to 2"'l:0,000. 

The "Herald" was published later at No. 21 Ann Street. 
Still later it was published in the Bennett Building on the 
Northwest corner of Fulton & Nassau Streets, and after the 
year 1865, in the "Herald" Building that stood where the tall 
St. Paul Building now stands, on the corner of Broadway and 
Ann Street, from which it went to its present quarters, at the 
junction of Broadway and 6th Avenue between 35th and 36th 
Streets, now better known as "Herald Square," one of the busy 
centres of New York. The New York "Herald" was the first 
daily paper to remove from the lower part of the city to an up- 
town home. 

The present New York "Herald" is a world-wide news 
medium. It is a nine or ten, double-page, seven-column 
paper, and is sold for three cents. The Sunday edition, often 
reaching 10 or 50 double-pages, is sold for five cents. In the 
capitals of Europe, the New York "Herald" is the only medium 
traveling Americans rely upon for news of the United States. 
Copies of this paper can now be had in all the large cities of 
the world. It is published daily both in New York and Paris. 

The "Herald," since the death of James Gordon Bennett, 
Sr., has been conducted by his son. 

On April 3, 1811, Horace Greeley issued the "Log Cabin" as 
a weekly paper, from No. 30 Ann Street. He was then 30 years 
of age. 

The New York Tribune — The "Tribune" appeared on the 
10th of April, 1811. It was also issued from No. 30 Ann Street, 
at one cent per copy, and with the following introduction. 

"The 'Tribune,' as its name imports, will labor to advance 
the interests of the people and to promote the moral, social 
and political well being. The immoral and degrading police 
reports, advertisements and other matter which have been al- 
lowed to disgrace the columns of our leading penny (cent) 
papers, will be carefully excluded from this and no exertion 
spared to render it worthy of the hearty approval of the vir- 
tuous and refined and a welcome visitant at the family fireside." 



74 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

The "Tribune" printed an eaition of five thousand copies, 
and Greeley, in the beginning, reported — "We found some dif- 
ficulty in giving them awa}'." 

Chas. A. Dana, later owner and editor of the New York 
"Sun," was employed by the "Tril)une" at fourteen dollars per 
week, and Henry J. Raymond who organized the New York 
"Times," first published at No. 113 Nassau Street in 1851, was 
also employed by the "Tribime" at ten dollars per week. 



In the later part of 1835, I left Cornell, Althause & Co., and 
on Dec. 15th entered the employ of Daniel Delaven & Bro., a 
hardware house doing business at what is now Broadway, 
corner of Broome Street, where I remained until they failed in 
18;] 6. ■ 

First Steam Railroad Out of New York — The first steam 
Railroad out of New York was the New York and Harlem, 
about the }ear ls;j(j. 

R. E. Dietz Began Experimenting With Artificial Lights — 

About the year 1836, I purchased a German student lamp 
for use in my room, and resumed experimenting in my leisure 
hours, striving to burn the various hydro-carbons which were 
at that time being introduced for artificial lighting. 

I experimented with camphene, rosin oil, burning fluid, and 
chemical oil, all of which were in a greater or less degree dan- 
gerous for use in the hands of unintelligent persons. Cam- 
phene or fresh distilled turpentine, in those days, produced 
the cheapest artificial light known in the world, and was widely 
used in New York by reason of its brilliancy and economy, 
by tailors, shoemakers and thousands of persons who could not 
afford to burn gas, as then made from rosin or coal, which 
cost the public, at that time, about seven dollars per thousand 
cubic feet. 

The brilliancy and cheapness of camphene caused the Gas 
Company to spend thousands of dollars striving to produce 
a light of equal power. 

The liquids then mostly used for illumination were fish oil, 
sperm or whale oil, camphene, burning fluid and spirit gas. 

The City's First Gas Works — It was not until 1823 that New 
York City adopted gas for lighting purposes. The first city 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



75 








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76 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Gas Works were located at Rynder Street, corner Hester, near 
the east end of Canal Street, and remained there, using rosin 
for gas making, until Canal Street was opened through to the 
Bowery. 

AVhen the New York Gas Light Company was incorporated 
Samuel Leggett became its President. It was first to gen- 
erally introduce gas-lighting in this city. The Company was 
given an exclusive privilege for thirty years, to lay gas 
pipes south of Grand Street. The first house lighted by gas 
was that of the President of the Company, at No. 7 Cherry 
Street. 

After the failure of Daniel Delaven & Bro., I secured a posi- 
tion with the hardware firm of Adam W. Spies & Co., at T.>3 
Pearl Street, near Maiden Lane. They had succeeded the firm 
of C. & J. D. Woolf who were first estal^lished in 1800. I had 
charge of their Gun and Pistol Department. 



R. E. Dietz Became a Volunteer Fireman — After entering 
the employ of Adam \\\ Spies & Co., I joined No. 9 Colum- 
bian Hose Company that c^uartered with Engine Company 
No. 40, "Lady AA'ashington," at No. 174 Mulberry Street. 

At the time I became Volunteer Fireman, the entire force 
of fire fighters consisted of but twelve hundred members, 
many of whom were the foremost men of the time. It was an 
honor to be a member of the V^olunteer Department in those 
days. After serving six years in the department I was hon- 
orably discharged. I have outlived all my companion mem- 
bers of No. 9 Columbian Hose Company. (Note: The pre- 
sent paid Fire Department, installed in 1865, costs the city 
over nine million dollars annually.) 

R. E. Dietz Sails for Mobile — WHiile I was in the employ 
of Adam W. Spies & Co., business was so extremely dull that 
I did not feel that I was earning the salary paid me, and times 
were so hard after the panic of 1837 that New York seemed 
like an immense Poor House. In 1839 I resigned my position, 
and early in November of that year I engaged passage for Mo- 
bile, Ala., on the brig "Mobile," Capt. Risley in command. I 
bade adieu to my relatives and friends and sailed for the 
sunny South. There were but three other passengers aboard, 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 77 

and after a rough and sturmy three weeks' voyage, we arrived 
in AIolMle, where I at once secured a position in William 
Chamberlain's hardware store, where I remained until the 
early spring of 1840, when I resigned, and decided to return 
to New York by way of New Orleans. At New Orleans I 
was taken with malarial fever and had a hard siege. After 
recovering, on leaving my boarding place at 23 Magazine 
Street, I found I had only sufficient funds to return to New 
York by sailing vessel. I reached New York in the month 
of May, and secured a temporary position in Sheriff Acker's 
office, where I remained for a few months. 

R. E. Dietz Starts in Business. — I had now arrived at the 
age of twenty-two, and during the summer of 1840 I pur- 
chased, with my small savings, a lamp and oil business at 
No. 62 Fulton, corner of Columbia Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. 
There was not a stage or horse-car line running in Brooklyn 
at that time. The population of New York City was then 
but oOO.UUU. By strict attention to business and with more 
than .')0U days of hard work, I managed to save about six 
hundred dollars the first year. The business gradually in- 
creased, and a year or two later I took my brother William 
Henry and one John A. W^eed into partnership, and we con- 
ducted the business under the firm name of Dietz, Brother 
& Co. We opened a lamp store at No. 13 John Street, New 
York City, and were the inventors and sole manufacturers of 
the genuine Doric lamp. Note. — On the following page is a 
facsimile of a full-page advertisement of Dietz, Brother & Co. 
as it appeared on the first page of Doggett's Fourth New York 
City Directory, in 1845 and 1846. Mr. R. E. Dietz then re- 
sided at No. 33 Vandewater Street. 

New York's First Savings Bank. — New York's first savings 
bank was opened on March 36, 1841. It was called the 
Chambers Street Savings Bank, and was located in the base- 
ment of a building on the site of the present Court House 
in Chambers Street. 

The Old John Street Theatre.— Dietz, Brother & Co.'s 
store at No. 13 John Street was just west of the old John 
Street Theatre, which stood in the rear of Nos. 15, Vt and 19. 

Note. — At this writing (1913) the rear of the Chatham Na- 



78 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

tional Bank, corner Broadway and John, covers the site of the 
old store of Dietz, Brother & Co., No. 13 John Street. 

The theatre building was an unsightly ol)ject, principally 
built of wood, painted red, and stood about 60 feet back 
from the street, having a covered way of rough boards from 






DIETZ, BROTHER & CO. 
i\o. 13 JOlIiV STKEET, Wew-lork, 

62 rVLTON STRSBT, Brooklyn, 

ALSO, M ANlFir-niBeRS AND DEALERS IH 

IMPROVED CAMPHENE LAMPS, 

80I.AU LAIU'S, GlICAKDOLCS, HALL. LAMPS AND LAIVTERSIS, 

CniMNEYS, AND LAMP GLASSES OF ALL KINDS, 
Lamp AVick, Pure Sperm Oil, Camphcne and Burniog FlukJ, 

WHOlESALB ANT) RETAIL, AT LOW PRICES, FOR CASH. 




lEJ* Mechanical anj uiliur Lamps repaired , Aelral Lafpa altered to Solar , GiraodoIeB 
re-(;ilr, bronzed, and silvorevj, &c. 





fe^n 



Facsimile of Dietz Brothers & Co. early advertising. 

the sidewalk to the main entrance. The auditorium consisted 
of what was then called a "pit" (now known as the orchestra), 
two rows of boxes and a gallery, and when filled, at usual 
prices, would realize 800 dollars. It was the fourth theatre 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



79 



erected in New York, and was opened by Lewis Ilallam, Jr., 
and John Henry, on Deceml^er 7, 1767, by an American com- 
pany, "at six exactly," with "Beaux's Stratagem." 

Where the First American Play Was Produced. — The first 
American play that Avas ever produced in New York was 
played on its stage. Its last pre-Revolutionary performance, 




STAGE OF THE OLD JOHN STREET THEATRE, 
Entrance No. i" John Street (i8-|o). 

"She Stoops to Conquer," was given in August, 1773. Pul)lic 
excitement running too high for the safety of the perform- 
ers, who were continually annoyed by the gallery, the com- 
pany retired to the AVest Indies. The theatre was closed the 
year following- by the Provincial Congress passing a reso- 
lution suspending all public amusements. It was used, for 
a time, by the British officers for amateur theatricals. 

The first performance on its stage, after the Revolution, 



80 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



was in December, 1785. The first play produced under the 
American flag was called "Countess of Salisbury." In 1790 
this theatre was the only one open in New York. At that 
time General Washington resided in the Macomb House, 
No. 39 Broadway, and that was his last place of residence 
in New York. An authority states that the national air of 
the day, "Hail Columbia," was composed by a German 
musician named Fyles, in compliment to President Wash- 
ington, and that it was first played in the John Street Theatre 
one evening when General Washington visited it in 1790. 
It remained a theatre up to the year 1819, 

New York's Pioneer Florist. — Grant Thorburn, New York's 
pioneer florist, who arrived in this country in the year 1791, 
and started a grocery store at the corner of Nassau and Lib- 
erty Streets, occupied later (with a seed store) a location in 
front of the old John Street Theatre. 

Note. — At the present writing (1913) the site of No. 15 John 
Street is occupied by the Dennison Manufacturing Company. 

The Old John Street 
M. E. Church.— Still fur- 
ther east, on this historic 
spot, on the opposite side 
of John Street, at Nos. 4-4 
and 46, is located what is 
known as the old John 
Street Methodist Episco- 
pal Church (the cradle of 
Methodism in the New 
World.) It was built the 
year after the old John 
Street Theatre was open- 
ed, and on October 30, 
1768, dedicatory services 
were held. (John Street 
was then known as Gold 
Hill.) Regular services 
are still held in this 
church each week day, be- 
tween the hours of 12 and 
1 o'clock. The church 
was rebuilt in 1S17, and again rebuilt in 1811. Escaping the 
great fire of 1776, which destroyed Trinity Church and fifteen 
hundred dwellings in the AVhitehall district, the edifice was 




(Courtesy of Harper & Brothers) 

THE OLD JOHN STREET METHODIST 
EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 

Erected 1768. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



81 



fortunate in suffering no damage in the military occupation 
of New York by the English. Within its walls, at the con- 
ference of i:S9,' John Dickens was appointed book steward, 
and a circulating library, which is still a valuable possession, 
was established. From this apparently insignificant circum- 
stance has developed the Methodist Book Concern of to-day, 
a 3,500,000 dollar corporation. 




GOLDEN HILL INN. 
No. 24 William Street, near John. tt n j 

Constructed in 1756. The bricks used in it were brought from Holland. 

(Note.— This building is still standing, in 1913, and opposite it is the 
birthplace of Washington Irving.; 



83 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

But a short distance to the east of the old John Street 
Church was shed the first blood of the Revolution, and the 
first life was sacrificed in the cause of freedom. The two 
days' fight, known as the battle of Golden Hill (the high 
ground between Cliff and Gold Streets, near John), was in 
January, 1770, caused by the sawing down, by some British 
soldiers, of a Liberty-pole which the "Liberty Boys" had 
erected in celebration of the repeal of the Stamp Act. This 
battle took place five days prior to the battje of Lexington. 



Dietz Brothers, who were established in iSiO, were the 
first to manufacture lamp goods by steam power in quan- 
tities, in this country. 



P. T. Barnum. — During the year 1842 P. T. Barnum be- 
came the proprietor of the American Museum, which had 
been built by John Scudder in that year, at the corner of 
Broadway and Ann Street. 



In 1844 Fifth Avenue was only a country road. Farms 
with rail fences adjoined it. 



On February 2, 1846, Arasmus French was admitted to the 
firm of Dietz, Brother & Co. 



Robert Edwin Dietz Married. — I (Robert Edwin Dietz) was 
married at St. Ann's Episcopal Church, in Brooklyn, N. Y., to 
Anna, daughter of William and Anna Hadwick, of Ennis- 
killen, Ireland, on May 16, 1846. We then took up our resi- 
dence in Brooklyn, where we went to housekeeping. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



83 



After a short residence in Brooklyn, I leased a house one 
door from the northeast corner of Gold and Beekman Streets, 




HOUSE No. 66 BEEKMAN STREET 

(Next to the Corner of Gold) 

Home of R. E. Dietz from 1846 to 1853; Birthplace of His Son, Fred Dietz 



84 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

New York, from Philip Hone, who was Mayor of New York 
City in 1826. I resided there up to the year 1853. The house 
still stands at this writing (1892). The following children 
were born to us : 

MaryAugusta Dietz, who married William Henry White. 
Frederick Dietz, who married Marie Louise Hick. 
Anna Louise Dietz, who married Frank H. Clement. 
John Edwin Dietz, who married Olga S. Sanderson. 
"William Meinell Dietz. 
Henry James Dietz. 
Howard J. Dietz. 

No. 6G Beekman Street was the birthplace of my daughter 
Mary Augusta, and also my son Frederick. 
The following is a copy of my lease in 1846 : 

"This is to certif}' that I have hired and taken from Philip 
Hone the house and lot No. 66 Beekman Street, for one year, 
to commence the first day of May next, at the yearly rent of 
six hundred and fifty dollars, payal)le quarterly on the first 
day of August, November, February, and May. The first 
three payments to l^e 150 dollars each, and the last 200 dol- 
lars, of which last payment 50 dollars may be paid in receipted 
bills for repairs. 

"T do hereby promise to make punctual payments of the 
rent in manner aforesaid, and quit and surrender the prem- 
ises at the expiration of the term, in as good state and con- 
dition as reasonable use and wear thereof will permit, dam- 
age by elements excepted. 

"Given under my hand and seal the sixteenth day of Feb- 
ruary, eighteen hundred and forty-eight. 

"(Sgd.) ROBERT E. DIETZ. (Seal.) 

"Witness : 

"Philip Hone, Jr." 

Facsimile of letter received by R. E. Dietz from Philip 
Hone, one time Mayor of New York, on Jan. 30, 1851. (See 
next page.) 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



85 



cy^^^^^cy:^ y<^--f ^^. /^yy 






2^ 







k^^C^^^-^ ^f^^\:-^, ^^^i,.<:^rW^ yA^>-.:^ 




Note. — New York has done little to honor her famous sons. 
Of all the distinguished men born here, only five, besides 
Mayor Philip Hone, have memorial statues in this city. New 
York City has had just six sons of whom she is proud. In all 
the years that have passed since the boys and girls of the vil- 
lao-e of Harlem came down Bouwerie Lane to dance around the 



80 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



May-pole on Bowling Green, there have been born in New 
York City only six men of sufficient importance to receive the 
tril)Ute of a memorial statue. And some of these six statues can 
he said to be conspicuously placed — few citizens ha\e seen 
them all. Peter Cooper, depicted by Saint-Gaudens, stands in 




PHILIP HONE. 
(Mayor of New York City, 1826.) 



the triangle south of Cooper Union. On Bowling Green is a 
statue of Abraliam de Peyster, Mayor of the city from IGOl to 
1695. Two other Mayors — James Duane and Philip Hone — 
are commemorated by statues in the Hall of Records. There 
is a statue of AA'ashington Irving in Bryant Park, and one of 
John Jay in front of the Chamber of Commerce. And that 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



87 



is all. Of all the statesmen, inventors, philanthropists, jurists, 
soldiers, of all the men distinguished in various pursuits who 
have l)een born in the City of New York, only six now appear, 
in marble or bronze, to remind the world of their claim to 
immortality. 

Now, if the citizens of New York had a deep dislike for 
statuary it would be easier to understand this apparent neglect 
of their illustrious fellow-townsmen of the past. But this is 
not the case. New York is full of monuments, most of which 




FIRST HUDSON RIVER RAILROAD PASSENGER STATION, 
Located at what is now Chambers St. and West Broadway (1850 to 1867). 

are memorials of individuals. Some of them, of course, like 
the Soldiers and Sailors' Monument, at Riverside Drive and 
Eighty-ninth Street, and the Consolidation of Greater New 
York in the Hall of Records, are in commemoration of groups 
or historic events, but nearly every monument is in memory 
of some great man. 

Telegraph Line Opened. — In January, 1S46, the telegraph 
line between New York and Philadelphia was opened. 



On September 25, 1S49, the Hudson River Railroad ob- 
tained permission to run dummy engines as far south as 



88 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



Chambers Street, where (at what is now Chambers Street 
and West Broadway) it had its passenger station, which held, 
I should judge, about a dozen cars. Columbia College stood 
opposite the station from 1850 to 186G. In 1867 the depot 
was transferred to Thirtieth Street and Tenth Avenue, and 
still later to Forty-second Street and Park Avenue. 

Note. — The latest depot is known as the Grand Central 
Terminal. • 

In 1850 the northern boundary line of the city did not 
extend above Thirty-fourth Street. 



P. T. Barnum and Jenny Lind. — It was in the year 1850 
that P. T. Barnum engaged the Swedish "Nightingale," Jenny 




{Courtesy of ILlrp.r cr Ihnthri-!.) 

THE ORIGINAL CASTLE GARDEN 
(As seen from the Battery). 

Lind, at one thousand dollars per night, to make her appear- 
ance here in opera. She arrived here on September 1st, and 
Castle Garden was selected as the place for her to make her 
debut. 

Jenny Lind's Concert. — P. T. Barnum awarded the contract 
to illuminate Castle Garden to Dietz, Brother & Co., for this, 
the greatest musical event that New York City had ever 
known, which took place on the night of September 11th of 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



89 



that year, when Jenny Lincl was introduced by Mr. P. T. 
Barnum to her first American audience. * 




INTERIOR OF CASTLE GARDEN— DURING ONE OF 

JENNY LIND'S CONCERTS (1850) 

Illuminated by Dietz, Brother & Co.. with Solar Lamps 

(burning sperm oil). 

People never cease talking of this great event, and of the 
Broadway hatter, John H. Gennin, who paid 22o dollars at 

* Castle Garden is now the New York Aquarium in Battery Park. This 
is the world's largest aquarium (with an average of 5.000 visitors daily), 
and has the finest collection of living fish ever displayed. The site com- 
mands one of the most noble views in the world, the Bay of New \ork. 
The Garden was originallv built in 1807-1809 as a place of defense and 
retained as such until 1823, when it was ceded to the city, dismantled as 



90 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

a fort, and changed to a place of amusement. Castle Garden was first 
called "Fort Clinton." then "Castle Clinton" (after DeWitt Clinton, the 
patriotic Mayor of New York City in the troublesome days of 1812), 
then "Battery Fort." and finally "Castle Garden." General Lafayette was 
the first visitor of importance to visit it in 1824. In those days it was 
one of the most commodious places of its kind in the world and was 
New York's first roof garden. It was the place of meetings of all great 
functions, and the noted men who made the history of the country, during 
the first and middle portions of the nineteenth century, met there. It fre- 
quently held 6,000 people, and on some occasions as many as 10,000. It 
soon became a fashionable resort, and was changed to a play-lx)use in 
1839. It was the home of New York's first great season of opera in 1847. 

auction for the choice of seats for the first Jenny Lind per- 
formance. The receipts from the first night were 17,846 dol- 
lars ; the second, 1J:,203 dollars, and the last of the New York 
series of her concerts brought the receipts up to 16,028 dollars. 

When Jenny Lind visited Boston, the first night's receipts 
were 16,479 dollars — this to hear a woman sing! The total 
receipts of the ninety-live concerts, under this great show- 
man's management, were 712,161 dollars. 

Barnum released the great singer from her original con- 
tract after the second night's performance, and the share she 
received for the first six concerts was oO.OOO dollars, or five 
times the amount of her original contract. She gave half 
of her receipts to charity. The total net sum she received 
for her ninety-five concerts was 176,675 dollars. These figures 
are calculated to make modern managers of single star musi- 
cal attractions envious. 

Yet, in five or six years, Barnum was "dead broke." His 
start to regain his fortune was made by taking "Tom Thumb" 
for a second European tour, and he also took over to London 
an "Uncle Tom's Caliin" company that proved popular, and 
he was soon again in full swing. Later came the big Barnum 
Circus and other enterprises. 

In the early fifties, this great showman had Dietz, Brother 
& Co. refit, with elaborate gas fixtures, his great American 
Museum that stood on the southwest corner of Broadway 
and Ann Street (where the tall St. Paul Building and the 
National Park Bank now stand), and where he exhibited his 
"Great Moral Drama." This museum caught fire at midday, 
July 13, 1865, and was utterly destroyed in less than an hour's 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



91 



i!raiiiiiiii;('/^tfliiSiiii\i'\ta»\«\\w\v>'ATOr'^itvTO\'\im'ii|iiiii' ' in imiTiijm 




92 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

time, but without loss of life. Barnum afterwards opened a 
museum on the west side of Broadway, above Spring Street, 
and later this building also burned. Barnum died, at the 
age of eighty-one, a wealthy man. 

When the Horse-Car Lines Were Built. — The Eighth Ave- 
nue Horse-Car Line was built by George Law and Oliver 
Charlick and completed in 1851. During the year 1853 the 
Second, Third and Sixth Avenue surface car lines obtained 
their charters, and later, when they started operations, the 
street car business began to boom. 



The Metropolitan Hotel was erected on the east side of 
Broadway, corner of Prince Street, and when completed in 
1852 was opened on September 1st of that year. It cost a 
million dollars, and was said then to stand at the head of 
the hotels of the world. 



Broadway Bridge. — About 1852 Broadway below the City 
Hall was such a crowded thoroughfare, and was so con- 
gested with the great number of business vehicles and the 
different stage lines running to Fulton, A\"all and South Fer- 
ries, that pedestrians had difficult}^ in crossing. In October, 
1852, a plan for the relief of this thoroughfare was presented 
to the Common Council. Finally a bridge, for the use of 
pedestrians, was erected across Broadway, at Fulton Street. 
It was completed and opened to the public on May 16, 186T. 
It was but little used, however, and was removed on Decem- 
ber 21, 1868. 

Crystal Palace. — The Crystal Palace was erected in what 
is now Br3'ant Park, in 1852, and on July -i, 1853, the first 
American World's Fair" was opened there. The famous Crys- 
tal Palace was destroyed by fire October 5, 1858. 

First All-Night Cafe. — The first all-night cafe was started 
in 1852, by Robert Burns. He opened a chop house on Sixth 
Avenue, opposite the Crystal Palace. This restaurant soon 
became famous, and when Robert Burns died and his mantle 
and business fell upon the shoulders of his only son, Samuel 
F. Burns, the latter profited by the foundation his father laid, 
and built upon it one of the most successful restaurants the 
city had e\'er known. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



93 




94 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

It was during- the year ISoi that trains first began to run 
from Jersey City over the Erie Railroad to Buffalo. 



Dietz, Brother & Co. Changed to Dietz & Co. — After 1855 
the firm name of Dietz, Brother & Co. was changed to Dietz 
& Co., when three more of my brothers were admitted to the 
firm. AVe then had a large factory built for the manufacture 
of lamps, burners, gas fixtures, Sec, in rear of Nos. 133 and 
131 William Street, New York City, and the business was 
continued here, under the name of Dietz & Co., for about 
twenty years. 

When I started in business, almost all the house lamps used 
in this country burned sperm oil, and most of them were 
imported, the few that were manufactured in this country 
being made by hand. 

Domestic Lighting a Serious Expense. — Domestic lighting 
was one of the most serious items of family expense. Sperm 
oil sold for $1.25 per gallon by the cargo, and $2.25 per gallon 
at retail. Camphene was the first substitute for sperm oil. 
It was inflammable and evoked a comljustible vapor, and 
there were frec^uent explosions from it, but it gave a much 
brighter light than sperm oil, and as it cost about one-third 
the price, people burned it and took the chance of accidents 
for the sake of getting an illuminant within their means. It 
could only be used in a lamp with a chimney. 

Burning fluid, made from a mixture of camphene and alco- 
hol, was used in portable lamps without a chimney. These 
burners had two long wick tubes, and a cap attached by a 
chain, to put over them to extinguish the flame. 

Dietz First Made Sperm Oil Lamps. — The lamps I first 
manufactured were for burning sperm oil. Then I made 
lamps to burn camphene, and these continued in use until they 
were displaced l)v lamps burning coal oil, rock oil, or kerosene. 

When Coal Oil First Came to Public Notice. — Coal oil 
first came to puljlic notice during the year 1856. It was dis- 
tilled from the boghead minerals which came from Tobano 
Hill, Scotland ; Albertine, which came from Nova Scotia ; 
Grahamite, which came from Ritchie County, W. Va., and 
Breckenridge, Ky. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 95 

In less than three years after the time coal oil was dis- 
covered, there was a series of coal oil distilleries from Port- 
land, Me., down to Wilmington, Del., refining this illumi- 
nant. 

Dietz First to Invent a Coal Oil Burner. — After coal oil 
was discovered, the Dietz Brothers were the first to solve 
the problem of constructing a burner to consume it. A glance 
at the patent files in Washington, D. C, will show that Dietz 
was the first (in 1857) to invent a flat-wick burner that suc- 
cessfully consumed this fluid, and to the Dietz family belongs 
the credit of creating a revolution in the artificial light 
business. 

Discovery of Petroleum. — Two or three years after the dis- 
tilling of coal oil had become firmly established, petroleum, or 
"rock oil," was discovered. This product of nature, from which 
is distilled kerosene, gasoline, naptha and many other products, 
was first discovered in Oil Creek, Pa., on August 2(), 1859. 

Colonel Edwin L. Drake, the man who drilled the first oil 
well, was formerly a conductor on the New Haven Railroad. 
He went to Northwestern Pennsylvania in 1857. 

An active search was being made for the source of the 
oily scum that floated on the surface of the ponds in the 
vicinity of Oil Creek, samples of which were gathered and 
analyzed by Professor Silliman, of New Haven, Conn., who 
pronounced it crude kerosene oil. 

The Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company was organized, hav- 
ing for its object the gathering and sale of this surface oil 
in Western Pennsylvania. Contracts were at first made with 
farmers and others to gather the oily scum on a royalty. 
After a few barrels had been gathered. Colonel Drake was 
placed m charge. 

He had learned that as long ago as 1819 oil was accidentally 
obtained in boring two salt wells on the Muskingum River, 
in Ohio, and that in 1829 a flowing well was obtained, by 
chance, at Burkesville, Ky. He became possessed of the idea 
that he could obtain oil similar to that found on the sur- 
face, by boring for it, and, erecting a derrick, he started to 
bore an oil well. 

After spending much time and considerable money to drill 



1)6 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



the first well, Drake's funds g-ave out, and the well being 
unsuccessful, he was reduced to poverty, and had to sup- 
port his family by doing odd jobs. He kept a strong heart, 
however. His faith in the final outcome of his project re- 
mained unshaken, and early in the spring of 1859 he suc- 
ceeded in convincing two friends, R. D. Fletcher and Peter 




COL. EDWARD L. DRAKE and the DRAKE OIL WELL, 
The First Oil Well "Producer," Pennsylvania, 1859. 

Wilson, both of Titusville, of the soundness of his ideas, and 
they provided him with sufficient capital to renew his experi- 
ments. 

The Colonel then secured the services of William Smith 
and his two sons, of Tarentum, Pa., who were practical salt 
well drillers, and in a second attempt, in August, 1859. he 
"struck oil" at Oil Creek, at a depth of 71 feet, and obtained 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



97 



400 gallons of crude petroleum, which he sold for 50 cents 
a gallon. 

This started an "oil craze," and soon a forest of oil derricks 
sprang up, extending into West Virginia and Ohio. Suc- 
cessful wells yielded from 100 to 200 barrels of oil daily. 
The "Noble" well yielded, in a little more than one year, 
500,000 barrels of oil ; the "Sherman" well, in two years. 




450,000 barrels ; and petroleum became one of the most valu- 
able productions in the United States. (Note. — The yield in 
1904 was over 100,000,000 barrels.) 

The discovery of "rock oil" and its distilled product, kero- 
sene, was made at an opportune time, as the Civil War came 
on soon afterwards, and the internal revenue of 1861 pre- 
vented the use of turpentine and alcohol for lights, and kero- 
sene filled the place of these liquids, which had been so gen- 
erally used up to that time for illuminants. 

Note. — The above illustration shows the common perforated 



98 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



lantern which was used both in this country and in Europe for 
more than two hundred years preceding the nineteenth cen- 
tury. Candles only were used in these lanterns, and the feeble 
light shown out through innumerable apertures punched in 
the tin from the inner side. Often the holes were arranged in 
fanciful patterns, scrolls, crescents, stars or interlaced tri- 
angles. As late as 1798 we find that these old lanterns were 
still used in the country districts near New York, where the 
darkness and bad roads made them a necessity. To-day, how- 
ever, unless in some country district, they are rarely seen. 





Dietz Junior Lantern 
gives light of 6-candle power. 



Dietz New D-Lite Lantern 
gives light of lo-candle power. 



Note. — The above illustrations show two of the most mod- 
ern and popular types of Dietz Lanterns of the present 
day (1913) for burning kerosene. As proof of their popularity 
they have been widely imitated. 

The discovery of petroleum created a revolution in the 
use of artificial light. My brothers and myself were easily 
convinced that the new hydro-carbon, petroleum, was des- 
tined to outstrip all competition. Our faith proved well- 
founded, for its distilled product, kerosene, now illuminates 
all countries of the civilized world. * 



* In the year Drake's well was first operated, namely, 1859, the total 
value of that year's production of oil in New York and Pennsylvania was 
$32,000. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 99 

Note.— In 1913, the value of the production of New York, 
Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, California and minor producing 
States, came close to $150,000,000. 

The Chemical Bank. — The Chemical Bank is the only New 
York bank that did not suspend in 1857, and again, the only 
bank that during the early stages of our Civil War, when 
all other banks suspended specie payment, allowed deposi- 
tors to draw in coin the amounts to which they were entitled. 
Gold was then selling at a premium of 150 per cent. 

Note. — The following, from the New York "Sun" of Octo- 
ber 3, 1903, regarding the Chemical Bank, may be of interest: 

A correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung informed the 
German public that the Chemical Bank continued to make 
drugs and to dispense soda. The following letter from New 
York, written to correct this misapprehension, was promptly 
published : 

From the Frankfurter Zeitung. 

The charter of the Chemical Manufacturing Company, with 
banking privileges granted by the State of New York, 1824, 
expired in 1811:, and the obligation to manufacture chemicals 
ceased. A bank was then created with a capital of 300,000 
dollars, under the above name, to succeed the banking busi- 
ness of that manufacturing company. 

Of all New York banks, the Chemical is the only one that 
did not suspend in 1857, and again the only bank that during 
the early stages of our Civil War, when all other banks sus- 
pended specie payment, allowed depositors to draw in coin 
the amounts to which they were entitled. A balance of 5,000 
dollars, which I had there at that time, was placed on special 
gold account to my credit, and I was enabled later to sell it 
at a premium of 150 per cent. 

Shares of the Chemical Bank in 1860 were worth about 
400 dollars, deposits were 2,000,000 dollars, and dividends 
12 per cent, per annum, against the value in 1903 of 4,000 
dollars a share and against deposits of 25,000,000 dollars, 
and annual dividends of 150 per cent. 

The following anecdote of the good old time when New 
York millionaires could be counted on the fingers of our 
hands may be of interest : 

A depositor coming with an introductory letter to Peter 
Goelet wanted to enlist his powerful influence to obtain a 
loan, and was shown by Mr. Williams into the directors' 
room, where he could find only an old gentleman mending 
his coat. The depositor took him to be a tailor, but he 



100 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



actually was the Swiss ancestor of that wealthy Goelet family 
so well known to-day. When Mr. Williams explained to Mr. 
Peter Goelet what he was wanted for, he promptly came out 
in shirt sleeves and assisted the customer to the money he 
required. LOUIS WINDMULLER." 

Mr. Downing and Central Park. — W. J. Downing addressed 
a letter from London, during the year 1849, to the Horti- 

DIETZ "JUNIOR" 
"QUEEN OF COLD BLAST LANTERNS" 




No Household Is Complete Without a 

DIETZ "JUNIOR" LANTERN 

(Made in Tin and Brass). 

culturist, a periodical of that date, calling attention to the 
importance of parks in the growing city of New York — and 
Central Park was the outcome. 

In 1857 Central Park was founded. It contains 8T9 acres 
that cost the city something like six million dollars. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



101 



Note.— The estimated value of the land at present (1913) is 
two hundred and fifty millions. 

It would seem fitting and appropriate for the city to erect 
a statue in the park to the memory of W. J. Downing. 

DIETZ NEW D-LITE 
THE LANTERN OF "QUALITY" 




No Barn or Stable is Complete Without 
A DIETZ D-LITE LANTERN 

Atlantic Cable.— The celebration marking the completion of 
the Atlantic Cable will long be remembered in New York It 
took place under the glass arches of the Crystal Palace m 1 o. 
Cyrus W. Field, whose energies chiefly had accomplished this 
great work, was given a banquet, and the whole land broke 
out in celebration. 



102 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Note. — On April 15, 1862, Mr. R. E. Dietz wrote to Mr. Field, regarding 
a new form of electric wire, and the following is a facsimile of a letter 
requesting Mr. R. E. Dietz to call and see him : 

"huuJS^ a-i-Kj (x/vUb /y./^J. 






rv,tf-fc <r/ 1^ Uy/KjCf^ 



CkJLj'-^ 



C_a<JUL/ t/O/^ cf^Aj 







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Jir^^ 




Dietz & Co. In London. — During the year 1860, Dietz «& 
Co. opened a store in London, E. C, at No. 4 St, Paul's Build- 
ing, Little Carter Lane. My brother, Michael A. Dietz, re- 
moved to London and took charge. 

Dietz & Co. then issued their first fine large forty-page 
Lamp Catalogue, 12 x IS inches, illustrated with wood cuts 
and printed in colors, a veritable work of art. My brother 
Michael eventually became the sole owner of the London 
business, and conducted it under the name of Dietz & Co. 
up to the time of his death, in 1883. The name of the English 
firm was then changed to Dietz, Davis & Co. 

First Elevated Railroad. — The first elevated railroad built 
was the Ninth Avenue. It extended from the Battery to 
Twenty-first Street. It began running in 1869, and was first 
operated by cables run by stationary engines located at dif- 
ferent points on the line. (Note. — After 1870, dummy engines 
were used, and still later the trains were run by electric power.) 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



103 



Shortly after the Ninth Avenue Elevated Road was operated 
successfully, the Sixth Avenue Elevated Road was built ; then 
the Third and Second Avenue lines followed. They were all 
in operation prior to the year 1876. 

The Original Irwin Tubular Lantern. — In 1867, Archer, 
Pancoast & Co. had a factory at Nos. !) and 11 Mercer, oppo- 




{By Courtesy of Chamber of Commerce, New York, Incorporated 1770.) 

THE AMERICAN PROJECTORS OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE 

Standing (from left to right) : David Dudley Field, Chandler White, 

Prof. S. F. B. Moss, D. Huntington, Cyrus W. Field, and Wilson 

G. Hunt. Seated (from left to right) : Peter Cooper, 

Marshall O. Roberts, and Moses Taylor. 

site Howard Street, in New York City, where they manu- 
factured lanterns and gas fixtures. They wanted to close 
out their lantern department to some one who would carry 



104 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

out a contract with the patentee to manufacture the new 
Irwin Tubular Lantern. 

Early in the year 1867, Mr. A. G. Smith, then a lantern 
salesman for Archer, Pancoast & Co., showed me a lantern 
called the "Tubular," invented by John H. Irwin. This lan- 
tern burned on an entirely new principle, the air to support 
combustion being conveyed to the burner through the side 
tubes that formed the lantern frame, and producing a light 
of greater power than could be found in an ordinary lantern. 

John H. Irwin, the patentee, had granted a license to 
Archer, Pancoast & Co., of this city, to manufacture this 
lantern for the Eastern and Middle States, on a royalty. He 
had also granted to the Chicago Manufacturing Company, 
of Chicago, a license to manufacture this lantern for the 
Western States, on a royalty. The Chicago Manufacturing 
Company began the manufacture of tubular lanterns during 
the year 1868. They were succeeded, in 18T3, by the firm of 
Dennis & Wheeler, and in 1881 this firm was absorbed by 
the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company, of Rochester, N. Y. 
In the year 189T, the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company was 
absorbed by the R. E. Dietz Company. 

Mr. A. G. Smith, the Archer, Pancoast & Co.'s salesman, 
was anxious to find a person with sufficient capital who 
would purchase the lantern business and take him in as a 
partner. I was the only man to be found who was really en- 
thused over this new lantern. At first I had no thought of 
going into the business with Smith, and did all that I could to 
find him a man with sufticient capital to join him in the new 
venture. I loaned Smith twenty-five dollars to advertise for 
a partner. Mr. B. T. Babbitt, the soap manufacturer in New 
York City, after investigating the patent, was willing to in- 
vest twenty-five thousand dollars in the business as a special 
partner for three years, but the period was not considered 
long enough to place the business on a paying basis, so his 
ofit'er was declined. 

During the early part of 1868, I decided to join Smith in 
the new enterprise, provided I could close out my interest 
in the firm of Dietz & Co., in William Street. After some 
delay I succeeded, in July of that year, in selling my interest 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



105 



in this firm to my brother, J. M. Dietz, but was obliged to 
do so at a great sacrifice. He continued the business but a 
short time as the factory was destroyed by fire on the night 
of February 22, 1871. The loss being a total one, he never 
resumed the business. 

Just before my plans were perfected, the firm of Archer, 
Pancoast & Co. went into the hands of a receiver and on 
Tulv 30 1868, I purchased from the receiver, Edward J. Mur- 
ray the right to manufacture the new Tubular Lantern under 
the Irwin patents, together with their lantern business, stock, 
tools, patents and good will. 

Dietz & Smith.-On August 1, 1868, the firm of Dietz & 
Smith was formed. Smith had but little money, so I was 
obliged to contribute about 80 per cent, of the capital to 
finance the concern, but notwithstanding this fact, I agreed 
that Smith should have an equal interest with me m the 

business. ^ . , 

Dietz & Smith at once leased the upper floors of the four- 
story building, 23x100 feet, at No. i College P'a", corner 
of Robinson Street (now West Broadway and Park Place), 
and commenced to remove their purchases and belongmgs 
o the new factory. My eldest son, "Fred" D.etz who was 
starting out on his business career, ass.sted nt checkmg nr 
the goods as they arrived. 

It was but a short time before the new firm was turnmg 
out Tubular Lanterns. At first the trade was prejudiced 
a..ainst this lantern, principally on account of >ts seemnrgly 
Ifi and awkward appearance. It differed f™™ ->.'-- 
term that had been marketed up to that period, and i re- 
quired time to overcome this prejudice^ t was difficult o 
Ll 500 dozen of these lanterns the first year, but x^hen 
their superior burning qualities became known, they grad- 
ua ; grew in favor, and it was but a few years unti tliere 
was a demand for thousands of dozens annually. Ditz Tu- 
bular Lanterns (or imitations of them) are the only knid 
now sold. 

Imitations of the Original Tubular Lanterns Appear.--Once 
the success of the Tubular Lantern was assured, other Ian- 



106 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

tern manufacturers tried to make lanterns as near like it as 
possible, and I believe the first suit that was brought by the 
owners of the patents to establish their validity was brought 
against Dane, Westlake & Covert, of Chicago, 111. Later suits 
were brought against the following firms or corporations for 
infringements of some of the patents connected with the 
Tubular Lantern industry: Edward Miller & Co., Howard & 
Morse, St. Louis Railway Supply Company, Nail City Lan- 
tern Company, Ewing & Bill, Follett Lantern Company, 
Bridgeport Brass Company, Rau Manufacturing Company, 
Underbill, Osborne & Co., F. Meyrose & Co., and a number 
of others. 

There was a long period of expensive and tedious litigation 
before the patents were adjudicated. Note. — In this connec- 
tion the reprint of an early circular sent by Dietz & Smith to 
the jobbing trade is of interest. (See next page.) 



TO THE TRADE 





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PQUffi 



We would respectfully call your attention to the Sale 
of our TUBULAR LANTERN, and take this method of 
notifying you that we have fixed the price for Jobbers to sell 
as follows : — - 

No. Tubular Lantern, at $16.00 per Doz. 

" 1 " " 20.00 

These Prices Must, under all Circumstances, 
Be Sustained, 
otherwise we shall, in self-defence, decline furnishing those 
who, directly or indirectly, undersell these figures. This we 
do to protect the trade, and shall be firm in the matter, as it is 
our aim to have some rule whereby all who handle these goods 
may realize a good profit. 

Trusting this will meet with your approval, we shall be 
pleased to fill any orders you may favor us with. 
Yours, Respectfully, 

January let., 1869. OlETZ & SMIlri, 

Manufacturers. 
N. B. — Please notify your Salesmen of the above 
arrangement. 

(107) 



108 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

First Cutting and Drawing Power Press. — At the time we 
started to manufacture the original Tubular Lantern (in 
1868), there was not a power press made that would cut 
and draw a lantern bottom or a lantern oil pot from a sheet 
of tin. The first successful press of this kind was an experi- 
mental one made for me by Mr. Brown, of Delancey Street, 
and was first operated in my factory at Fulton and Cliff 
Streets, about the year 1872. 

When the No. Tubular Lanterns were first made, they 
sold for 13 dollars per dozen to the jobbing trade, but as 
the cost of the burner, globe and royalty at the start was 
more than half that sum, it left but a small margin of profit 
for the manufacturer. As a matter of fact, the business made 
no money for the first few years, and my partner drew out 
of the business for his living expenses, the first year, practi- 
cally all the capital he had contributed. 

The year we started in business (1868) there was a craze 
for velocipedes, and the supply was not equal to the demand. 
They were sold at a profit of about 20 dollars each. My part- 
ner believed that he had a chance to make some money 
quickly, so he ordered al)out six thousand dollars' worth of 
velocipedes on the firm's credit. When I learned of this, I 
decided that he was a dangerous man to continue in business 
with, and proposed to bu}^ out his interest. He was willing 
to sell provided I would give him 25,000 dollars cash. This 
I could not aft'ord to do, for I was then over fifty years of 
age, and every dollar I possessed was tied up in the business. 
As I knew that he was not in a position to purchase my 
interest, I was obliged to apply to the court and place an 
injunction on the business in order to arrive at a settlement. 

Firm of Dietz & Smith Dissolved. — After the court granted 
me an injunction, Smith agreed to a compromise, and on 
August 5, 1869, accepted 17,500 dollars for his interest. I 
paid him 2,500 dollars cash, and gave him my notes for the 
balance. The partnership lasted but twelve months. 

I continued the business under the name of R. E. Dietz, 
but was hardly out of the difficulty with my partner when 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 109 

another trouble arose. Robinson Street was to be widened 
from College Place to West Street, and the building I occu- 
pied as a factory, on the southwest corner of College Place 
and Robinson Street, was condemned. The building was vir- 
tually to be cut in half in order to make Robinson Street the 
same width as Park Place, thus reducing the frontage of the 
building to about twelve feet. 




"The Man and the Lantern" 

R. E. DIETZ 

and the 

Original "DIETZ" Tubular Lantern. 

During the year 1891 a building which stood a little to 
the west of my factory on Park Place (formerly Robinson 
Street) suddenly collapsed, causing a loss of fifty lives. The 
Building Department attributed the cause to the fact that 
the foundation rested on quicksand. Note. — It may be of in- 
terest to state that, on June 4, 1910, the front of what was left 



110 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




PART OF THE FIRST DIETZ LANTERN FACTORY, 

After its collapse on June 14, 1910; in it the first Dietz Tubular 
Lanterns were made. 

(Now the southwest corner of W. Broadway and Park Place.) 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



111. 



of the building in which the first Dietz Tubular Lanterns were 
made also collapsed, much in the same way, at which time 
many persons narrowly escaped death. 

The fact of two buildings in this section meeting a like 
fate would indicate that the quicksand under the foundation 
was the real cause. 




SECOND DIETZ LANTERN FACTORY. 

Fulton and Cliff Streets, New York. 
Occupied four upper floors. (1871 to 1887.) 

After a long search I found new manufacturing quarters 
in the old six-story brick building, Nos. 54 and 56 Fulton 
Street, corner of Clifif Street. I leased the four upper floors 
(12,000 square feet) in this building, which had been unoccu- 
pied for 1-i years, and contrary to the usual custom of placing 
engine and boiler in the basement or cellar, I installed on the 
sixth floor a 25 horse-power, upright boiler and engine, and all 
my machinery as well. I was hardly settled in my new quar- 



112 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




ters, when the disastrous panic of 1873 occurred, when many 
business houses came to grief. I continued to manufacture 
Lanterns in Fulton Street for sixteen years or until the spring 
of 1887. 

A Dietz Lantern Presented to Professor 
Wise. — This illustration is a reproduction 
of a silver-plated lantern, presented to Prof. 
F. Wise by R. E. Dietz in August, 1873. 
The New York "Daily Graphic" had a bal- 
loon constructed that year, with the idea of 
having Prof. Wise make a trip from Brook- 
lyn, N. Y., across the Atlantic Ocean. (The 
actual start, however, was never made.) 

The lantern was sent over to Brooklyn 
to Prof. Wise on the day he was to depart, 
and the following lines accompanied it 
(composed by Capt. W. H. DeHart) : 

"Take this Lantern, Professor Wise, 

You may need it in the skies. 

Should you fall from your lofty height, 

Grasp this Lantern firrn and tight ; 

'Twill light your way, without a doubt, 

While passing through your downward route; 

But may you reach your destination 

Amid the cheers of all creation, 

And with a hero's well-earned name. 

Return to your native shores again. 

The "Graphic" then will be in glory; 
And one "Wise" man to tell the story 
Of the "Graphic" Balloon's wondrous flight 
And the "Dietz ' Lantern's superior light." 

Note. — Edward Payson Weston.— Before the famous "vet- 
eran hiker," Edward Payson W^eston, started on his trip of 3,500 
miles from Santa Monica, Cal. to New York, on Feb. 1, 1910, 
and before he started on his "hike" of 1,116 miles from New 
York to Minneapolis, June 2, 1913, he provided himself with 
a Dietz Lantern. He is now (1913) 75 years old. 

Colonel E. S. Jenney and the Irwin Patents. — Some time 
during the year 1881, Colonel E. S. Jenney, an attorney who 
for years had been defending one of the most persistent in- 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 113 

fringers of the Irwin Tubular Lantern patents, concluded that 
the courts would some day prevent his client from marketing 
infringing Tubular Lanterns, and he formed a syndicate with 
sufficient capital to buy or control the Irwin patents, and to 
purchase the business of one or both of the legitimate manu- 
facturers making Tubular Lanterns under the Patents. 

He first negotiated from the patentee an option for the 
control of the patents on a guaranteed yearly payment of 
royalty. He then secured from the Western Tubular Lanterns 
manufacturers, Dennis & Wheeler, an option to purchase 
their business, and then tried to purchase from me my rights 
to manufacture this lantern for the Eastern and Middle 
States, together with my good will, tools, machinery, &c., 
but he was not successful. He then proposed that I should 
join the new Company he was about to form, turning my 
business over at an appraised value and taking stock in the 
new Company in payment. 

I w^as obligated to the original patentee for quite a heavy 
royalty on every dozen of these lanterns that I made, and if 
I did not accept either of Colonel Jenney's propositions, I 
would be obliged to pay a royalty to the new Company, if 
formed. I was inclined to accept the latter proposition, but 
after consulting with my son Fred, he was of the opinion 
that it would be better for me to stay out and continue to run 
my own business in my own way, for, if I joined the new 
Company, I would have little voice in its management. He 
argued that if the new Company was formed, the investors 
would go into business for the purpose of making money, 
and that unless they played fairly with me, as an indepen- 
dent concern, I could prevent them from doing so. While I 
would be obligated to pay them a royalty, they could not 
afford to "freeze out" a license. 

The Steam Gauge and Lantern Company Organized — The 
Jenney deal with the patentee and Dennis & Wlieeler was 
eventually consumated, and the Steam Gauge & Lantern 
Company was organized in 1881, under the laws of the State 
of New York, with a paid-in capital of 250,000 dollars. 

The new Company wished to locate their works at Roches- 
ter, N. Y., but they first had to obtain my consent before lo- 



114 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

eating a second factory in my territory, and for granting 
them this privilege I secured a substantial reduction in my 
royalty. They proved, at first, to be a strong competitor, and 
for a time made money and paid their stockholders substan- 
tial dividends. They had a disastrous iire on Nov. 9, 1888, at 
which time 35 lives were lost, and their plant totally de- 
stroyed. They then moved to Syracuse, N. Y., and continued 
in Inisiness until the summer of 1807. 

R. E. Dietz Purchased a Site for a New Factory. — During 
the year 1882, I opened a Western Sales Office in Chicago. 
My business soon increased so that my manufacturing quar- 
ters in Fulton Street were found to be inadequate, and during 
the year 1883 I purchased four lots equal to one hundred feet 
square, in the old Fifth Ward, at Greenwich, corner of Laight 
Street, where I planned to build a new factory. This part of 
the city (which might be considered the southerly end of 
Greenwich Village) teems with historic importance, and about 
the year 1840 was a fashionable residential section. 

Greenwich Village — Greenwich Village was named for an 
estate on the site of which it was built. The estate originally 
belonged to Admiral Sir Peter Warren. Sir Peter came to this 
country soon after 1700, as a Captain of one of the English 
ships of war. He was an able naval officer and had command 
of the British fleet at the memorable capture of Louisburg 
from the French, in 1715. New York celebrated the victory 
with bonfires and illuminations, and when the successful Ad- 
miral returned, he received from the city, in honor of his vic- 
tory, a grant of nearly 300 acres of land, and there he built 
for himself a huge mansion that stood in the block now 
bounded by Bleecker, Tenth, Charles and Perry Streets. 
This was Warren's country seat and was considered one of 
the finest out-of-town homes on Manhattan Island. (His 
town house was at No. 1 Broadway.) 

Warren named his estate "Greenwich" in memory of Green- 
wich, England. When the grounds were broken up into 
streets and building lots, the rural settlement that sprang 
into existence on the old estate kept the early name, and was 
known as Greenwich Village. 

When Greenwich Village was a health resort and an ex- 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



11. 



elusive residential quarter, it was situated at some distance 
Northwest of New York City. A wide and much-travelled 
road connected the village with the City, and this road was 




R. E. DIETZ COMPANY, 

Chicago, 111. 

Western Sales Office, opened 1882. 

called ''Greenwich Street" after Greenwich Village. To 
Greenwich, when contagious fevers scoured New York, people 
would come with their families for purer air and rustic sur- 



116 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

roundings, and for the benefit of business men who wished 
to go back and forth from the city, a stage coach made two 
daily trips between the Village and Wall Street. 

St. John's Park.— The plot on Laight Street which I pur- 
chased was about 500 feet West of what was, up to 1868, the 
beautiful St. John's Park. The Park was founded in 1831 by 
Trinity Corporation as a pleasure ground, and covered four 
acres, two full city blocks. It contained specimens of almost 
every kind of American trees and some foreign trees as well. 
It was the pride and glory of the city in the second quarter of 
the lUth century. 

On April 1st, 1823, Trinity Vestry adopted tha following 
resolution in regard to St. John's Park : 

"That said square shall remain, hereafter, an ornamental 
square, without any buildings being erected therein, and in 
case all lessees of the lots fronting on said square shall agree 
to maintain the same at their own expense as a private square 
in proportion to the ground which they possess fronting the 
square, that it shall remain as a private square, but otherwise, 
or if the proprietors of the lots do not so maintain the said 
square, then that it be ceded to the city corporation as a 
public square." 

On June 9, 1823, the lessees acceded to the arrangement 
and the vestry ordered the conveyance to be made. The 
square was then fenced in for the exclusive use of the adja- 
cent residents who gained admittance by use of a gate key. 
Grammercy Park was later organized on the same plan. 

Laight Street, which bounded St. John's Park on the north, 
was named after Edward Laight, a warden or vestryman of 
Trinity Church. 

George Washington, when he came to New York to take 
command of the Army in the East, in 1TT5, landed at the foot 
of Laight Street. 

Homes of a Number of the "400"— About the year 1840, 
the homes of a number of the "100" were on Laight and other 
streets surrounding St. John's Park. 

Isaac Iselin, the founder of the Iselin fortune, resided for 
ten years at No. 36 Laight Street. In the early part of the 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 117 

nineteenth century, while on a visit to his native land, he 
was drowned in Lake Geneva. 

The Murray family, owners of the Murray Hill Estate, 
lived for several years at No. 30 Laight Street; and on the 
corner of Laight and Varick Streets stood the Laight Street 
Baptist Church. The Presbyterians built this church in 1825, 
and it was purchased by the Baptists in 1843, and then became 
known as the "Laight Street Baptist Church." 

By the close of the Civil War, the character of the pop- 
ulation adjacent to this Park became greatly changed. The 
families of fashion had moved further up town and a more 
humble class of tenants took their place. St. John's Park, 
however, still remained filled with handsome trees and fur- 
nished a playground for groups of happy children. Its at- 
tractiveness had kept the rows of houses about it well tenan- 
ted and little altered, , save on Hudson Street which adjoined 
it on the West, where the Hudson River Railroad ran down 
to its terminus at Chambers Street. 

Hudson Street was the boyhood home of Bret Harte, the 
author of "The Heathen Chinee." 

Flaghouse of Greenwich Village. — Just one block above 
Laight Street there lived, up to about the year lUOO, an inter- 
esting character, Sally Ann McFadden. She established a flag 
business there in 1831, and her house was long known as the 
"Flag House of Greenwich Village." It is claimed that she 
made the first American flags that were ever sold to the trade 
in New York. She was one of the most celebrated characters 
that Greenwich Village ever gave to fame. Sally was nearly 
100 years old when she died. 

When "Jim" Fisk was Colonel of the Ninth Regiment in New 
York he had her make for him the largest flag that was ever 
made. It measured 110 feet long, was 50 feet wide, and cost 
$600.00. It required a small army of girls, working day and 
night for six weeks, to complete it. 

An enormous pole was erected for this flag at Long Branch, 
N. J., where the regiment was to have an encampment: ^\'hen 
the flag was raised on it there was not enough wind to unfurl 
it, but later in the day a storm arose and as the flag blew out, 
a portion of it was caught in the halyards and it thus became 



118 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



like a sail filled with wind. The pole was snapped off and the 
huge flag was blown far out into the ocean. Fisk offered a 
reward of 200 dollars for its recovery, but although several 
tugs searched for it, no trace of the enormous flag which had 
such a disastrous career, was ever found. 

Home of Captain John C. Ericsson. — St. John's Park was 
bounded on the south by Beach Street, and here, at No. 36, 
lived, for thirty years, one of the most famous inventors of 
the nineteenth century, Capt. John C. Ericsson. He was prac- 
tically the last of the old-timers to remain in the locality. 




CAPT. JOHN C. ERICSSON. 



Captain Ericsson was born in Sweden on July 31, 1803. 
From his earliest days he displayed an extraordinary mechan- 
ical bent, and was so capable that at the age of twelve he was 
hired by the Swedish Canal Company in the capacity of a 
draftsman. He came to the United States in 1839, and in 
1848 became a naturalized citizen. He constructed a caloric 
engine in 1833, and although when, in 1836, he tried to take 
out a patent for a screw propeller, the priority of his invention 
could not be maintained, he was afterwards awarded one- 
fifth of the sum adjudged the invention by the admiralty. 
In 1842 he designed the steam machinery and propeller for 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 119 

the United States steamer "Princeton," which was being con- 
structed at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia, under the gen- 
eral directions of Capt. R. F. Stockton, of the United States 
Navy. He invented the turreted ironclad "Monitor" in ISHS, 
which later destroyed the first ironclad Confederate battleship 
"Merrimac." His later inventions included a solar engine and 
a torpedo boat destroyer. 

Captain Ericsson lived at No. 36 Beach Street, in New York 
City, until the time of his death, which occurred on March 8, 
1889. His remains were returned to Sweden by the United 
States Government in a war vessel. A statue of Captain 
Ericsson was afterwards erected in Battery Park. 

James Fenimore Cooper, the novelist, resided for a long 
time on Beach Street, near Hudson. 

Old St. John's Chapel.— On the east side of St. John's Park 
near Laight Street stands the old St. John's Episcopal Chapel. 
It is one of the oldest and considered one of the finest archi- 
tectural landmarks still left the city. St. John's was built by 
Trinity, the wealthiest church in the United States. The 
cornerstone was laid on September 8, 1803, and the chapel was 
completed in 1807 at the then startling cost of 1,772,833 dollars. 
Even after that lavish expenditure, there was money in hand 
for an organ that cost 6,000 dollars. It was ordered from a 
company in Philadelphia, and during the War of 1813 it was 
entrusted to a ship that was to carry it to New York, but the 
ship was waylaid by a British frigate and the organ was taken 
off to London, where it was kept for two years and not re- 
leased until a 2,000-dollar ransom was paid. 

St. John's was fashioned after St. Martins in the Field in 
London, and is similar to the older St. Paul's Chapel, just 
below the old Astor House on Broadway. The interior recalls 
the churches built in London by Sir Christopher Wren. Like 
St. Paul's, it faces the west, not, as some have said, in order 
that it might command a perfect view of the Hudson River, 
but to comply with the old tradition of the church that the 
chapel and altar should be in the east end. Once upon a time 
its doors looked forth upon the jealously guarded green park 
that was the pride of its parishioners. 

The land on which old St. John's Chapel stands was part of 



120 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

the vast acreage of the King's Farm, as they called the grant 
made to Trinity by Queen Anne, al^out the year 1T05. It was 
a farm bounded by a mile of Hudson River shore, stretching 
from Fulton Street to beyond Canal Street and it reached back 
from the river nearly to Broadway. On the eastern border, 
north from what is now Warren Street, lay the Lispenard 
Meadows, a dreary waste of marsh land, a stretch of pools 
and swamps of bulrushes and brambles. Snakes lurked there, 
and they used to say that no good use would ever be found 
for this low and swampy tract. The sportsmen of the eigh- 
teenth century hoped that it would never be disturbed, for 
they found it fine hunting grounds. It was regarded so alto- 
gether worthless as real estate that when one man offered to 
present the Lutheran Church with a plot of six acres near to 
what is now Canal Street and Broadway, the gift was coldly 
declined because the land was not considered worth fencing 
in. In 1805 Anthony Rutgers saw the possibilities of this use- 
less section and he obtained a grant of a large portion of the 
property on consideration of draining it. One of the means 
used was the cutting of the canal through Canal Street, and 
that is how that thoroughfare got its name. Leonard Lispe- 
nard married a daughter of the far-seeing Rutgers, and under 
his ownership the property became habitable and valuable. 

Where R. E. Dietz Skated as a Boy. — When a boy, I fre- 
quently skated over the stream that started from what was 
called the "Collect" or "Fresh Water Pond" that covered the 
site of the present Tombs and Criminal Court Building and 
much of the nearby ground, and ran north, or nearly so, into 
the canal constructed in Canal Street for the purpose of drain- 
ing the Lispenard Meadows, and which had an outlet in the 
Hudson River. Canal Street was 100 feet wide, with a drive- 
way and promenade on each side of the stream. There was 
a bridge over the stream at Broadway that was universally 
known as the "Stone Bridge." 

When the streets were graded by the city, the stream in 
Canal Street was filled in and the "Stone Bridge" that was 
over it at Broadway was covered with earth, and it is now 
below the pavement in that busy thoroughfare. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



121 



New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Purchases 
St. John's Park. — Soon after the Civil War, the New York 
Central and Hudson River Railroad sought to purchase St. 
John's Park. They wished to erect on it a freight station. The 
consent of Trinity Parish was necessary to the transaction, 
not only hecause they were one of the proprietary owners of 
the Park, but also becatise of the condition imposed on the 
title to the property by the vestry's resolution of 1S2;5 declar- 
ing "That said square shall remain hereafter an ornamental 



^y#*2 



^"^nmh^ A^ -^«,^ , 




(Courtesy of Harper & Brothers.) 

THE OLD STONE BRIDGE, 
Broadway at Canal Street (1815). 

square without buildings being erected therein," and promis- 
ing "That it be ceded to the city corporation as a public 
square," if the private owners should fail to keep their agree- 
ment. Yielding to the inducements offered. Trinity gave its 
much-desired permission. The then new rector, the late Rev. 
Morgan Dix, D. D., consented to this, but later dee])ly re- 
gretted the action which permitted the "Juggernaut of Com- 
merce," as he expressed it, to pass over what should have been 
a play-ground for the people in the square in which the vestry 



122 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



of the church had declared no buildings should ever be erected. 
In 18G8, the railroad erected the enormous freight station 
which covers the four acres of ground and extends to the side- 
walks on all four sides ; so the city never became the recipient 
of the Public Park so generously suggested by the Trinity 
vestry of 1823. 

Surmounting the western front of this unsightly three-story 
Freight Depot is an enormous relief in metal, probably 150 







Mliiillli,,; J 



^ fSfifti 




THE NEW YORK CENTRAL AND HUDSON RIVER RAILROAD 

FREIGHT STATION (Since i868) 
Which covers St. Johns Park. (Cut showing Hudson Street at Laight.) 

feet long, depicting locomotive engines, steam cars, shipping 
and a medley of other industries. 

In the middle of the relief, in the place which would be 
occupied Ijy the principal deity in a classic pediment, stands a 
heroic statue of Commodore Vanderbilt. Upon the base of the 
statue the date of the o1)literation of beautiful St. John's Park 
is to be f(^und in the inscription, "Erected 1868." 

The R. E. Dietz Company, Incorporated. — Shortly after pro- 
curing the plot of ground on Greenwich at Laight Streets, I 
had plans made for a new and up-to-date lantern factory. I 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 133 

had a desire to have the business I had founded continue per- 
manently under my name, so early in 1886, I incorporated the 
R. E. Dietz Company under the laws of the State of New 
York, with a paid-in capital of 100,000 dollars. The entire 
stock was owned by myself and two sons . 

My son Fred Dietz, at that time, had been associated with 




DIETZ THIRD LANTERN FACTORY, 

Greenwich at Laight Street, New York. 

Erected 1887. (Frontage 200 feet.) 

me in the business for about twenty years, and my son John 
E. Dietz, about half that length of time. I retained a con- 
trolling- interest in the Company, and the Board of Directors 
was composed of myself and my two sons. I was elected 
President; Fred Dietz, Vice-President and Treasurer; and 
John E. Dietz, Secretary of the Company. (Note.— These 



124 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

same Directors and officers were re-elected annually, for nine 
succeeding years, after which time ill health prevented R. E. 
Dietz from taking an active part in the business.) 

In the spring of 1887 I commenced the erection of a seven- 
story and basement factory building on the Greenwich Street 
plot, 75 X 125 feet. The building was completed the following 
spring, when the Company took possession. This was the 
year of the great blizzard in New York, which occurred March 
12. From the time the Company moved into their new quar- 
ters the business continued to expand. 

First Habitation of a White Man on Manhattan Island. — 
On the outer wall, at No. 11 Broadway, is a bronze tablet 
erected by the Holland Society of New York, September, 1890, 
confirming the fact that on this site on Broadway was a house 
or hut built and occupied by Adrian Block in 1613, the first 
habitation of a white man on this Island. 

R. E. Dietz's Great Financial Loss. — After having been 
actively engaged in business for over fifty years, and after I 
had passed my seventy-fourth birthday, in reviewing the past 
I am impressed with the fact that all men do not have that 
sacred regard for the principles of justice that they should 
have. 

Shortly before the time approached when I would be obliged 
to lay aside business cares, I needed to borrow one hundred 
thousand dollars, and I procured this sum on a call loan from 
the bank that I had transacted my business with for about 
thirty-five years. I was probably one of the bank's oldest 
depositors and was a stock holder in it as well. As I had 
placed in its officers' hands ample collateral for the loan and 
was paying them a liberal rate of interest, I believed that I 
would not be called on to pay the loan until it was convenient 
for me to do so ; but contrary to my expectations, this loan was 
called by the bank. I was then obliged to seek aid elsewhere, 
and unfortunately I was induced by my legal advisor to place 
my securities for a new loan with a firm of which his brother 
and brother-in-law were members, and in less than five months 
from the time I placed my securities in their hands the firm 
failed with debts amounting to nearly 3,000,000 dollars, their 
actual assets being about 39,326 dollars. Their failure caused 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



125 




ROBERT EDWIN DIETZ AT HIS DESK. 



126 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

me a net loss of over 100,000 dollars, principally l:)y my having 
excess securities in their hands. 

Although this firm appeared to be doing a very large and 
prosperous business when I deposited my securities with them, 
subsequent events proved that they were actually insolvent 
when my attorney induced me to take the loan from them. 

After the failure, I offered the assignee legal tender for my 
securities, but found my stocks had all been disposed of in the 
market. 

I secured the first judgment against this firm and was about 
the only creditor who received a dollar out of the wreck. I 
had the senior partner arrested and placed in the Ludlow 
Street Jail. He was finally indicted for forgery, but a commis- 
sion decided that he was insane and in that way he escaped a 
prison cell. He was placed in an institution and two years 
later he was discharged as incural)le but harmless, and disap- 
peared as a social outcast. 

The bank calling my original loan, as they did, obliged me 
to solicit aid elsewhere, and in doing so I met with the greatest 
loss in my business career through the hypothecation of 
securities which were in value much in excess of the amount 
of my loan. 

My Bookkeeper a Defaulter. — It is an old saying that 
"Troubles never come singly." Early in 1892, a trusted em- 
ployee who, for seven years, had acted as my private secretary 
and also as bookkeeper for the Company, resigned his position. 
Shortly after he left, it was discovered that by falsifying his 
books he had been abstracting funds from the Company's and 
my account. After his arrest, he acknowledged stealing 
twenty thousand dollars, but on examination of his accounts 
for the seven years, it was found that his thefts amounted to 
a much larger sum. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced, by 
Judge Cowing, to four years in State's Prison. 

This was another case of misplaced confidence. This young 
man was well thought of by me, and when he was taken sick 
in the spring of 1891 he was attended by my family physician 
and sent by me to the Adirondack Mountains, where he re- 
mained for seven months under full pay. He returned to his 
duties a well man at the end of that time, and during the month 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



127 



of February following his return he resioned his position, and 
shortly after, it was discovered he was a defaulter. 

Note. — Here the data from the diaries of R. E. Dietz ends. 
During- the year 1894, Mr. R. E. Dietz, founder of the R. E. 
Dietz Company, celebrated his llith birthday, 1)ut owing to 
his advanced age and poor health, he was no longer able to 
take an active part in the Company's affairs. 




ANNA E. LUERSSEN. 



It has taken much time and patience to arrange the copy 
for this work, and Miss Luerssen, head stenographer of the 
R. E. Dietz Company, who has been in their employ for more 
than thirteen years, deserves a full share of credit for the 
assistance rendred Mr. Fred Dietz in preparing the data. 



128 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



Note. — The data for this book from this point on is fur- 
nished by Fred Dietz, eldest son of R. E. Dietz, who succeeded 
his father as President of the Company. He was associated 
with his father in business before the orip;inal Tu1:)ular Lantern 
was first placed on the market in ISG.S. 

This data will relate to the past and the present as well. 



After the retirement of R. E. Dietz, in the fall of 1894, it 
necessitated the election of a new set of directors and officers 
of the Company. On January 30, 1895, a meeting was called 
and a new Board of Directors and officers were elected. It 
consisted of Fred Dietz, John E. Dietz and AMlliam Henry 
White (a son-in-law of R. E. Dietz). Fred Dietz was made 
President, Treasurer and General Manager; AMUiam Henry 
White, Vice President; and John E. Dietz, Secretary of the 
Company. (The above set of directors and officers were 
elected for nine successive years or up to the time of the death 
of William Henry White, in 1901.) Mr. AMiite took no active 
part in the business of the R. E. Dietz Company, he having 
a business of his own to look after which occupied most of 
his time. 

Since the year 1895, the management of the business has 
devolved entirely upon R. E. Dietz's sons. Fred and John E. 
Dietz, and as the output of the Company has increased many 
fold, since that time, it proves that the change meant growth 
to the business. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



129 



THE PRESENT HEAD OF THE 
R. E. DIETZ COMPANY 




FRED DIETZ 
President and Treasurer of the R. E. DIETZ COMPANY 



130 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Mr. Fred Dietz has devoted almost a lifetime to the business 
that his father founded. xVfter graduating from the Fortieth 
Street Grammar School in this city, at the age of sixteen, he 
entered the employ of Dietz & Co. as office boy ; and when 
his father took in Mr. A. G. Smith as a partner, forming the 
firm of Dietz & Smith, and started the Lantern business in 
1868, he was employed by them as Shipping and Invoice 
Clerk. After his father purchased Smith's interest, in 1869, 
for a time he sold Lanterns on the road. 

^^^len the R. E. Dietz Company was incorporated, in 1886, 
Fred Dietz was made Vice President and Treasurer, and after 
his father's retirement in 1891, became President, Treasurer 
and General Manager of the Company. Under his manage- 
ment, he has seen the business grow, from a relatively small 
beginning, to the largest of its kind in the world. 

His knowledge of the Lantern business dates back of the 
creation of the original Tubular Lantern. There is no one 
living who has a greater knowledge of the birth and growth 
of the Lantern industry. Credit is due him for many improve- 
ments in use on Dietz Lanterns and Lamps, as he has patented 
more than twenty-five valuable devices pertaining to them. 

The Dietz trade-mark and most of the Compan3''s familiar 
trade names which appear on their Lanterns and printed 
matter were originated by him. These are considered as one 
of the Company's most valuable assets. 

Since the decease of R. E. Dietz in 180T, Mr. Fred Dietz 
has had the active management of the R. E. Dietz Estate, he 
having been named as one of the Executors and Trustees 
under his father's will. Principally tlirough his efforts the 
estate has almost doubled in value since his father's death. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



131 




JOHN E. DIETZ, 

Vice Pres. and Gen. Mngr. of the 

R. E. DIETZ COMPANY. 



John E. Dietz, second eldest son of R. E. Dietz, was born 
at the summer home of his father; at Hempstead, L. I. He 
has devoted the greater part of his life to the Lantern business, 
having- entered his father's employ in 1878. After spending 
several years at the New York office, he and Warren Mc- 
Arthur took charge of the Western branch of the business, at 
No. 25 Lake Street, Chicago, when it was opened in 1882. 
When the R. E. Dietz Company was incorporated in 18Sfi. he 
was its first Secretary. He is now Vice-President and General 
Manager of the Company. 



133 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




ROBERT E. DIETZ, 2d. 



Robert E. Dietz, 2d, is the son of John E. Di^tz, and the 
only male grandchild of the late Robert E. Dietz. Our family 
name "Dietz" will end with this generation unless perpetuated 
by him. He managed the Automobile Lamp Department of 
the Company for a time, but owing to his nervous tempera- 
ment he could not stand the strain of office confinement and 
was obliged to temporarily seek outdoor life. During his 
association with the Company, he interested himself suffi- 
ciently in the manufacture of Lanterns to prove that at some 
future date he will be capable of managing the business 
founded by his grandfather. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



133 




WILLIAM HENRY WHITE, 
Formerly Vice-President of the R. E. DIETZ COMPANY. 

William Henry White was a director and officer of the 
R. E. Dietz Company for nine years. He was a Consulting 
Engineer and erected many gas and electric light plants 
throughout the country; was a third degree ]\Iason, vice-presi- 
dent of the Lotos Club from 1890 to 1904; and a Captain of 
the Old Guard. 

While he devoted but little time to the Company's affairs, 
he was always ready to give advice when called upon. 



The death of Mr. White necessitated the election of a new 
set of officers and directors. Fred Dietz was re-elected Presi- 
dent, Treasurer and General Manager; John E. Dietz was 
made Vice-President; and F. H. Clement, Secretary. 



134 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




FRANK H. CLEMENT, 
Secretary of the R. E. DIETZ COMPANY. 



Frank H. Clement is a Civil Engineer. He was born in Phila- 
delphia. In early life he was connected with the Philadelphia 
office of the English firms, Naylor, Benson & Co. and Vickers, 
Son & Co., up to January, 187 J:, since which time he has been 
connected, as Engineer, with railroads in the United States 
and South America, and large contract undertakings in the 
United States. He is a member of Engineering and Technical 
Societies in America and Europe, a number of other clubs, and 
is also a captain of the Old Guard. Mr. Clement does not 
devote his whole time to the affairs of the R. E. Dietz Com- 
pany owing to the fact that he has a business of his own to 
look after, but during his term of office he has given substantial 
advice and assistance to active officers of the Company. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



135 




WARREN McARTHUR, 
Exclusive Sales Manager. 

Mr. Warren McArthur can be classified as the "Pioneer 
Salesman of Tubular Lanterns." He has sold more lanterns 
than any other man. He joined forces with the firm of Dennis 
& Wheeler in the year 1878, who were then licensees under 
the Irwin patents for the sale of the Tubular Lanterns in the 
Western States. 

In 1881, when the business of Dennis & Wheeler was ab- 
sorbed by the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company, of Roches- 
ter, N, Y., Mr. McArthur entered the employ of R. E. Dietz 
and sold lanterns on the road. 

In 1882, when R. E. Dietz opened a Western Sales Office at 
No. 25 Lake Street, Chicago, Warren McArthur and John E. 
Dietz took charge of it. Later he became the Western rep- 
resentative of R. E. Dietz and the Steam Gauge and Lan- 
tern Company for the sale of their goods, with headquarters 
at Nos. ID and 21 Randolph Street, Chicago. 



136 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

In January, 1896, Mr. McArthur was made Exclusive Sales 
Agent for the sale of Dietz Lanterns in the United States, and 
during' the year 1896 he arranged to take over the exclusive 
sale of five additional concerns making Tubular Lanterns in 
the United States, and for about fourteen years acted as sales 
agent for the R. E. Dietz Company, C. T. Ham Manufacturing 
Company, Buhl Stamping Company, Wheeling Stamping 
Company, Winfield Manufacturing Company, and the Ohio 
Lantern Company. 

Since the year 1910 he has acted as exclusive sales man- 
ager for the R. E. Dietz Company and the C. T. Ham Manu- 
facturing Company (of Rochester, N. Y.) His quarters 
at the present time are at No. 20 East Lake Street, Chi- 
cago. Much credit is due Mr. McArthur and his corps of 
salesmen for the success of the R. E. Dietz Company. He 
has served the company and its predecessor faithfully and 
well for the past thirty-five years. 

His son, Warren McArthur, Jr., has been in the employ 
of the above two companies for several years, and in 1913 
designed what is familiarly known as the "Short-Globe" 
Tubular Lantern. It is being largely sold by our company 
at the present time, and is known as the Dietz "D-Lite." 

A Critical Year. — The year 1897 was a critical one in the 
affairs of the R. E. Dietz Company. On June 23rd of that 
year, with a large number of orders on hand, our seven-story 
factory in New York was totally destroyed by fire, together 
with all of our stock, tools and machinery. The fire started 
from some unknown cause shortly after 1 P. M. on June 23rd, 
and caused us a loss of over one hundred thousand dollars. 

Steam Gauge and Lantern Company Purchased. — It was 
seen that there was but one way to save the business, and 
that was to secure another factory at once, suitable for the 
manufacture of Lanterns. Before the blaze of our Factory 
had died away, a meeting of the Company's Directors was 
called, and plans were laid to purchase the business of the 
Steam Gauge and Lantern Company, a rival company in 
Syracuse, N. Y., the only other legitimate makers of Tubular 
Lanterns, besides ourselves, in the country. They were in- 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



137 




Destruction by Fire of the DIETZ LANTERN FACTORY, 
Greenwich at Laight Street, June 23, 1897. 



138 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




A LEAF FROM THE PAST 139 

corporated under the laws of the State of New York in 1S87, 
with a paid-in capital of 250,000 dollars. They were making 
practically duplicates of many of our Lanterns and were 
manufacturing under the same patents. 

Extraordinary efforts among the holders of their stock re- 
sulted in the purchasing of a controlling interest in the Syra- 
cuse Company. Although the stock was scattered in the hands 
of over eighty different holders, in less than thirty days every 
share was located and bought, and during the summer of 1897 
the Steam Gauge and Lantern Company and its plant became 
merged with the R. E. Dietz Company. 

This prompt action gave us a factory to work in and a new 
lease of life, while the New York Works were rebuilding. The 
possession of the Syracuse Works allowed the business to con- 
tinue without serious interruption. 

R. E. Dietz Deceased. — Before the plans were completed for 
the rebuilding of our New York Factory, we met with a more 
serious loss, in the death of the founder of the business — Mr. 
Robert E. Dietz, which occurred on September 19, 1897, at his 
summer home at Hempstead, L. I., which he had purchased 
in 1850. 

Note. — His father, John Dietz, Jr.; his father-in-law, Wilham Had- 
wick; his mother-in-law, Anna Hadwick; his brother-in-law, James Had- 
wick; and his wife, Anna Dietz, all died at his summer home at Hemp- 
stead. 

Mr. R. E. Dietz died without knowing that the factory 
building he had erected only a few years previous, virtually a 
monument to his life-long efforts, had been totally destroyed 
by fire only a few months before. 

In less than a year after his death, his executors replaced 
the Laight Street Factory building with one of fire-proof con- 
struction and two additional stories were added, making it a 
nine, instead of a seven-story building. 

The rebuilding was completed in 1898, and the Company 
resumed manufacturing Lanterns at the old stand. The busi- 
ness prospered, and even with the enlarged factory in New 
York City and the additional works at Syracuse, we were un- 
able to meet the growing demand for the "Old Reliable" Dietz 
Lanterns. As a result, early in the year 1904, the Directors 



140 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



141 




^ ' 



R. E. DIETZ COMPANY'S NEW YORK LANTERN FACTORY, 

Rebuilt 1898, after the fire; now nine stories, and fire-proof construction 
Frontage 200 feet. 

Greenwich at Laight Street, New York City. 



142 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

decided to purchase the Syracuse factory property, a block 
square, on \\"ilkinson Street, opposite Leavenworth Park, the 
dimensions being about 275x300 feet. On securing title, 
plans were immediately formed for building an additional 
factory on this site, adjacent to the old buildings. During the 
year 190o, a modern brick building of mill construction was 
erected, 260 feet long by 60 feet wide, five stories, including 
basement. 

By a direct switch from the New York Central Railroad, 
cars are run direct to the door of the Syracuse Works, with 
ample space to load or unload several cars at a time. In the 
Syracuse Factory we have one of the most modern and up-to- 
date lantern plants in the world, and even with these facili- 
ties, are frequently crowded for room and obliged to engage 
outside storage. Owing to this fact, early in 1913 we made 
plans for the erection of another factory building on this site, 
even larger than the one built in 1905. The building is now 
nearing completion, and with our increased facilities we hope. 
in 1914, to be able to fill all orders for "The Old Reliable" 
Dietz Lanterns promptly. 

This new addition will increase the floor space of our Syra- 
cuse plant over 50,000 square feet. 

The new building is not shown in the group illustrations on 
opposite page. 



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H 


cnoiu 











1840 








From Candles to 










Kerosene 










DIETZ made Candle Lanterns 
in 1840. 










DIETZ made Sperm Oil Lan- 
terns in 1845. 










DIETZ made the original Car- 
eel Lamp in 1850. 










DIETZ made the first Kerosene 
Burner in 1859. 






! 




DIETZ made the original Tub- 
ular Lantern in 1868. 










DIETZ made the original 
"Pioneer" Cold Blast Street 
Lamp in 1880. 










DIETZ made the original Cold 
Blast Driving Lamp in 

1887. 










DIETZ made the original Cold 
Blast Motor Lamp in 1896. 










DIETZ made the first Tinned 
Steel Lantern Burner in 
1900. 










DIETZ brought out the "D- 
Lite" type of Hand Lantern 
in 1912. 








1913 











A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



143 




JOHN L. SARDY. 



John L. Sardy's Trip Around the World.— Early in 1894, 
believing that it would pay our Company to make a greater 
effort for export business, we arranged to have Mr. John h. 
Sardy make an extended trip around the world. He left New 
York on May 2, 1891, and visited Honolulu, Auckland, Wel- 
lington, Christchurch and Dunedin in New Zealand, which 
required about three months. He arrived in Australia, via 
Tasmania, on October loth, and transacted business in Mel- 
bourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane ; time required about 
four months. Thence through Torres Straits to Batavia, Java, 
where two weeks were necessary, and then via Singapore to 
British India, the cities visited being Madras, Calcutta and 
Bombay; time nearly three months. From India he went to 
China and Japan, visiting Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, 
Kobe and Yokohama; the combined time spent in these places 
being about three months. The return to New York was 
made from Yokohama via Vancouver and Montreal. He ar- 
rived home after an absence of nearly eighteen months. 



144 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




R. E. DIETZ COMPANY, 

London Sales Office, 

Nos. 29 Shoe Lane and 7 Farringdon Ave., London, E. C, England. 

Opened 1896. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 145 

After Mr. Sardy's return from his trip abroad, our Company 
arranged to have him represent us in London, England, and 
he opened an office at No. 29 Shoe Lane, London, E. C. 

John L. Sardy's Second Trip Around the World — Mr. 

Sardy, after acting as our representative in London for nine 
years, arranged to make a second trip around the world in t)ur 
interests, and in March, 1906, he started out to re-visit the 
places included on his previous itinerary, with the following 
additions: Manila (Philippine Islands), Saigon (in Cochin, 
Chma), Penang (one of the Straits Settlements), Rangoon 
(in British India), Perth (in Western Australia), and Suva 
(in the Fiji Islands) ; returning to New York about the end 
of November, 1907, the trip having taken nearly two years. 
Mr. Sardy's combined mileage covered on the two trips in 
foreign lands, in our interests, was nearly 82,000 miles, made 
without any mishap whatsoever, except some personal dis- 
comfort in the excessively hot countries he visited. 

John L. Sardy Deceased.— On May 12, 1912. Mr. John L. 
Sardy, whom we all held in high esteem and whose efforts 
materially increased the company's business in the foreign 
countries through which he traveled, passed away in London 
after a long and painful illness. 

R. E. Dietz Company's London Representation. — The R. E. 

Dietz Company at this writing (1913) is represented in Lon- 
don by Mr. F. E. Hewitt, manager of the Universal Agency 
Company, llA Newcastle Street, Farringdon Street, E. C, 
this company having continued the business established by 
John L. Sardy in 1896. 



While the success of the R. E. Dietz Company is largely 
due to the efficient management of its officers, credit should 
be given the company's many faithful employees. 



146 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




POMEROY L. SALMON. 



P. L. Salmon has l)een connected with the lantern industry 
for the past thirty-two years, and may be classified as a vete- 
ran in the business. When the Steam Gauge and Lantern 
Company was incorporated in 1881 and took over the busi- 
ness of Dennis & Wheeler, of Chicago, III, he became a stock- 
holder and officer of that company, and when the R. E. Dietz 
Company, in 1881, absorbed the business of the Steam Gauge 
and Lantern Company, he entered their employ, and was 
made manager of the R. E. Dietz Company's factories in 
Syracuse. He has been directly connected with our Company 
for the past sixteen years. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



147 




ERNEST C. EVERETT. 



E. C. Everett was employed by the R. E. Dietz Company 
in 1895, as timekeeper. After showing his ability, in 189T he 
was made general superintendent of the R. E. Dietz Com- 
pany's factories, which position he has filled to our general 
satisfaction for nearly sixteen years. During this period, 
eleven patents were granted to him for improvements on 
goods manufactured by the Company. 



148 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




CHARLES L. BETTS. 

Charles L. Betts came with R. E. Dietz in 1885, the year 
before the company was incorporated. His entire time since 
(28 years) has been spent in improving and perfecting Dietz 
Lanterns. The first patent that was issued to him after the 
R. E. Dietz Company was incorporated was for a globe lift 
for a lantern, No. 364570, dated June 7, 1887. Since that date 
there have been no less than thirty-five patents for improve- 
ments on goods of our manufacture granted to him. The 
last patent issued to him bears date of January 7, 1913. He 
has, in addition to his patents, put into use many new 
methods of manufacture that have materially improved the 
Dietz line of goods. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



149 




LEWIS F. BETTS. 

Lewis F. Betts was born Uecenil)er 23, 1829, and died May 
18, 1911, aged eighty-two years. He was active almost up to 
the time of his death. 

\Miile Lewis F. Betts was not steadily employed by R. E. 
Dietz or the R. E. Dietz Compan}^, he was more or less in 
their employ for nearly twenty-five years prior to his decease. 
It is safe to say that during the last thirty years of his life, 
he and his brother Charles made more improvements in lan- 
terns than any others connected directly or indirectly with 
the lantern industry. 

The first patent of importance of Lewis F. Betts, used by 
the R. E. Dietz Company, was No. 21891:, dated August 26, 
1879. More than twenty-five patents pertaining to lanterns 
were issued to him. the most prominent of which were those 
governing the principle of air supply in the Dietz Union 
Driving Lamp; the square tube, as used on our A^ictm- and 
other lanterns; and the cross wire guard for Tubular Lan- 
terns that is now popular the world over. He was also the 
inventor of the Dietz "Pioneer" street lamp. 



150 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




EDGAR D. PRICE. 



Edgar D. Price, Office Manager, came with the R, E. Dietz 
Company in July, 1906, taking the place of an accountant who 
left after fifteen years of service. 

While this change disturbed our office routine for a time, 
we are pleased to record that it proved a great benefit to the 
business. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



151 



I 




FREDERICK W. VAN DUYN. 



Frederick Van Duyn, a nephew of the late R, E. Dietz, was 
employed by the company in 1888, two years after its incorpo- 
ration. He at first occupied the position of bill clerk, and 
now attends to the purchase of a greater part of the com- 
pany's supplies. He has been a faithful employee of the 
Company for the past twenty-five years. 



152 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




CHARLES ERB. 



Charles Erb came with R. E. Dietz in 1872. He has been 
at the head of the tool-making department of the company 
since its incorporation. He is one of our most faithful em- 
ployees, and has already spent more than forty years of his 
life with the Company and its predecessor. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



153 




KIRKLAND C. BARKER. 



Kirkland Barker's father was the first bookkeeper employed 
by R. E. Dietz after he started in business in 1840. During- 
the year 18TT, when his son Kirkland was a mere boy, his 
father secured a position for him with his old employer. R. E. 
Dietz. and he remained with R. E. Dietz and the R. E. Dietz 
Company for nearly thirty-five years. 



154 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




A LEAF FROM THE PAST 155 

Faithful Employees.— The R. E. Dietz Company and its 
predecessor have for many years given employment to a great 
number of hands, and in that way they have indirectly been 
the support of many families. At their two factories — one in 
New York and one in Syracuse, N. Y. — they employ about 800 
hands, and when their third factory, now under construction 
at Syracuse, is completed, their working force will no doubt 
be increased to 1,000. 

At present the company's pay-roll averages about 1,500 
dollars per day, or about 450,000 or 500,000 dollars per year. 
The relations between employer and employee have always 
been amicable, and differences have been settled without loss 
of pay or shutting down of factories through strikes or lock- 
outs. 

The Company takes great pride in the long service ren- 
dered by a great number of their help, many of whom have 
been in the employ of the Company and its predecessor for 
from five to forty-five years. 

Of the group on the preceding page, one was pensioned by 
the Company after a service of forty-two years, one left after a 
service of thirty-six years, one died after being in the employ 
for thirty years, another died after a service of twenty-five 
years, and one left after a service of twenty-four years. 

Nineteen are still in the Company's employ at this writing 
(1913): 

Four oi the nineteen have served from forty-one to forty- 
five years. 

Four from thirty-five to forty years. 

Four from thirty to thirty-five years. 

And the remaining seven have served from twenty-three 
to thirty years. 

Of the other 350 or more employees in the Company's New 
York factory, many have been in the Company's service from 
five to fifteen years. 



156 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 




cr o 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST lo? 

The following is a specimen card such as is issued occasion- 
ally by the R. E. Dietz Company in the employees' pay 
envelopes : 

IS YOUR TRAIN MOVING, 
Or Is It the Train On the Other Track? 

Every person has probably experienced the peculiar illusion 
that the train he was on was moving forward when, in 
reality, the train he was on was standing still, and it was 
the train on the next track that was going ahead. 

Many a man has stood still in his tracks in the position 
he was holding and the other fellow went ahead beca/use he 
studied the situation to ascertain how he could make him- 
self more valuable to his employer. 

Many a business has had to take down its sign and shut 
its doors because it has remained stationary, while the other 
fellow has spread out like a green bay tree because his force 
studied and planned and worked to better serve their em- 
ployers. 

You have always seen that we are constantly studying, 
planning and working to improve our goods and make them 
better. 

Every facility is afiforded you to improve yourself and in- 
crease your efficiency. Those who will not avail themselves 
of their opportunity, as occasionally happens, will find this 
no place for drones. 

The train is moving steadily ahead. We have a plentiful 
supply of sand to keep the driving wheels from slipping. 
All aboard! j^ £ DIETZ COMPANY. 

June 10, 1913. 

Charles F. Eberhardt and Old Horse "Charlie."— This work 
would not be complete without special reference being made 
to two old employees (using the term "employee" for both 
man and beast). We refer to the late Charles F. Eberhardt 
and the old horse "Charlie" that he drove for so many years. 

Charles F. Eberhardt came to work for R. E. Dietz in 
1869, and worked continuously for R. E. Dietz and the R. E. 
Dietz Company for forty-one years. He died September 
4, 1910. 

In 1908, two years before his decease, he was stricken with 
paralysis, which affected one side of his body. He was no 
longer able to work, and was retired by the Company from 
active service on full pay. 



158 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



Charles F. Eberhardt was not only held in high esteem 
by his employers, but by all his friends as well, and out of 
respect to him the works of the R. E. Dietz Company were 
closed on the day of his funeral. 

The old horse "Charlie" was in continuous service of the 
R. E. Dietz Company for twenty-one years. He died in 1911, 
at the age of twenty-seven years. It is safe to say that in 




CHARLES F. EBERHARDT AND THE OLD HORSE "CHARLIE." 

these years this horse covered over 40,000 miles in delivering 
Dietz Lanterns, a distance of almost twice around the globe. 
The First Work Horse Parade was held in New York City 
on Memorial Day, May 30. 190r. Over 2,000 horses par- 
ticipated, and the display was a great success. The interest 
centered in the contest for the "Evening Mail" medal for 
the winner of the "Old Horse" Class. Our old truck horse 
"Charlie " then twenty-three years old and seventeen years 
in service, not only captured the "Evening Mail" trophy, but 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 159 

also the first prize offered by the Association for Veteran 
Horses. His driver, Charles F. Eberhardt, then thirty-eight 
years in service, received from the American Society for the 
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 2.j dollars in gold. As 
veteran driver of the winning veteran horse, he also was 




"OLD CHARLIE." the Veteran Truck Horse. Beingf Awarded First Prize 
In First New York Work-Horse Parade, May 30. 1007. 

awarded $2.50 in gold, and a medal for well-kept harness. 
Horse and driver received the first honors over 2,000 entrants. 

The Dietz Company had seven single horses and trucks 
that took part in the First Work Horse Parade, and to two 
of our entries were awarded no less than seven prizes. 

We quote the following by the late Homer Davenport, from 
the ''Evening Mail," June 1, 1907: 



160 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

"On Memorial Day, May 30th, the first parade of the New- 
York Work Horse Association took place, two thousand 
horses participating. 

"The display was a great success, the interest centering in 
the contest for the 'Evening Mail' medal for the winner of 
the 'Old Horse' class. 

"To see real work horses on parade brings a different ap- 
plause than that sent up for the 'show' horses. The work 
horses on parade seem, by contrast, to be the difference be- 
tween smart West Point cadets and veterans of our past 
wars. The cadets outmarch the old veterans, but when the 
veterans march past, half of them out of step, there comes 
a spontaneous cheer of approval. So with the work horses 
that passed in review on Memorial Day. In them we saw 
honest, true workers, who last winter were slipping and fall- 
ing on the icy pavements; some of them beaten and abused 
by their drivers, not knowing why, and working on faith- 
fully for their board and hoping for a kindlier day. 

"When a horse survives the work of New York City seven- 
teen years, it is no accident, but due largely to the good care 
given him. Charles F. Eberhardt, driver for thirty-eight 
years for the R. E. Dietz Company, should have been given 
a handsome gold medal to wear the remainder of his life 
for the good care he has given old 'Charlie,' twenty-three 
years old, seventeen years in continuous service, who came 
near being the best horse in the parade. 

"To my mind, the man whose careful and considerate treat- 
ment has enabled 'Charlie' to win first prize in a horse parade 
where two thousand horses took part is a horseman in the 
finest sense of the word. 

"Old 'Charlie,' aside from his age, is a remarkable horse. 
He is noble in appearance, and his head is finely shaped and 
shows character." 

In 1908 old "Charlie" was again entered, with the expec- 
tation of carrying off honors in the Second Annual Work 
Horse Parade, but owing to his stepping on a nail shortly 
before the parade, he was slightly lame, and consequently 
was not in condition to show on parade day, much to the 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 161 

disappointment of his veteran driver. There were, however, 
five other Dietz entries that year, and each received a prize. 

Although Charles F. Eberhardt was no longer able to work 
in 1909, when Memorial Day came around and Charlie 
learned that his favorite was again entered for the parade, 
he pleaded so hard to drive him that he was allowed to do so. 
An assistant sat with him on the truck seat, and he was 
able to drive by holding the reins in one hand. Old "Charlie" 
was awarded second prize in the "Old Horse" Class this 
year. It proved to be the old driver's last ride behind him. 

In 1910, on Memorial Day, old "Charlie" was again shown 
in the "Old Horse" Class, and for the second time was 
awarded first prize. On September 4th his life-long driver, 
Charles F. Eberhardt, passed away. "Charlie," the horse, 
lasted but a short time after his master. In 1911, on Me- 
morial Day, he was shown for the last time in the Work 
Horse Parade, and this time secured second prize in the 
veteran class. In the fall of that year he was troubled with 
canker of the feet, and it was decided to let him spend the 
rest of his days in the country. He was taken in an ambu- 
lance to the Dietz farm, on Long Island, but shortly after 
reaching there passed away. 

Dietz Blazed the Way. — The name DIETZ has been a 
familiar one to the users of artificial lights for three gen- 
erations. 

R. E. Dietz was not only the pioneer maker of Tubular 
Lanterns and Lamps, but was pioneer maker of Coal Oil 
and Kerosene Burners, and the pioneer manufacturer of Arti- 
ficial Lights in this country. It would be a hard task to 
name all the valuable improvements introduced by the House 
of Dietz, during the past seventy years, on Lanterns, Lamps, 
Burners, &c. More real improvements have been added to 
Lanterns during the past forty or fifty years by Dietz than 
by all other makers combined. 

With the assistance of the large list of satisfied customers, 
many of whom have been continuously on the books of the 
company and its predecessor for several decades, the volume 
of the business since the death- of R. E. Dietz has been in- 



162 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

creased many fold, which shows that we retain the friend- 
ship and esteem of our customers. 

\Vhile we sold more dozens of Lanterns in 1912 than ever 
before, the present year shows that there has been an unprece- 
dented increase in the demand for the "Old Reliable" Dietz 
Lanterns, the output having exceeded all previous records by 
many thousands of dozens. 

The beautiful 200-page Catalogue, No. 43, recently issued 
by the R. E. Dietz Company, contains illustrations and de- 
scriptions of more than 100 different styles of Lanterns, Street 
Lamps, Driving Lamps and Station Lamps; Headlights, Side 
and Tail Lamps, for use on automobiles ; and more than 
thirty dift'erent styles of Lantern Burners manufactured 
by us. 

"The Old Reliable." 



DIETZ 
LANTERNS 



Standard Since 1840. 

DIETZ quality is the standard that all other Lantern 
makers seek to attain. 

When you purchase a DIETZ Lantern, you have a tried 
product which is endorsed by hundreds of thousands of 
users, and the only Lantern which has stood a genuine test 
of more than half a century. 

This organization, the oldest and largest in the Lantern 
business, has been a success since its inception. 

We have contributed to the industry almost every suc- 
cessful development that to-day is recognized as a standard 
or essential in Lantern construction. 

The Burners, an important part of Lantern construction, 
are made under our supervision in our own works. 

All the materials used in the construction of our Lanterns 
are the best the market affords. 

DIETZ Lanterns, having been longest on the market, have 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 163 

proven their claims for perfection and general satisfaction 
to the users. 

DIETZ Lanterns are in a class by themselves. They are 
used in every country on the globe. 

DIETZ Lanterns have higher value than any other make. 

The general office of the R. E. Dietz Company is in New 
York City, Greenwich at Laight Street. 

Our Exclusive Sales Manager, Mr. Warren McArthur, who 
handles all our domestic business and manages all our do- 
mestic salesmen, has headquarters at No. 20 East Lake 
Street, Chicago, 111. 

We are represented in London by F. E. Hewitt, of the 
Universal Agency Company, at No. 14A Newcastle Street, 
Farringdon Street. 

We also have active representatives in 

Hamburg, Germany St. Johns, Newfoundland 

Calcutta, India San Juan, Porto Rico 

Bombay, India Vancouver, British Columbia 

Sydney, New South Wales Phillipines 

South Sea Islands Straits Settlements 

Buenos Aires, Argentine Rep. Sumatra 

Valparaiso, Chile Java 

Barranquilla, Colombia Ceylon 

Mexico City, Mexico Korea 

Havana, Cuba China 

New York City — Past and Present. 

It is stated that the first st.eet car ever built was constructed 
in New York City by John Stephenson, in November, 1832, 
and named the "John Mason." 

Note.— I might add that at this writing (iQU) New York is about the 
only city of prominence where the old horse car may be seen in daily use. 

The following, from the New York "Sun" of November 22, 
1912, may be of interest: 



164 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

"STREET CAR PARADE EDIFIES BROADWAY. 



Company Shows Public the Development of the Art of 

Transit. 



ALL TYPES ARE ON VIEW. 



Horse-Drawn Vehicles of Vintage of 1860 as Well as the 
Double-Decker of 1912. 



Broadway had a parade yesterday morning, furnished by 
the New York Railways Company. The parade consisted of 
the various types of cars used in New York since 1860, and 
dating all the way up to a brand-new car which made its first 
appearance yesterday. The company gave the parade to show 
the public the development of the art of street railway traffic. 

President Shonts started this parade just before 10 o'clock. 
The first car was an old model horse car, vintage of 1860, 
with horse and a driver dating from the same year. The car 
held twelve unabashed passengers. 

Then followed a short, single-truck car, used in the cable 
car days of the '80s and '90s. It seated twenty-eight persons. 

Third came the double-truck car, first used in 1896, with the 
beginning of electric operation, which seats thirty-six passen- 
gers. It was followed by the 1908 model of the ''Pay-as-you- 
enter," familiar now to most New Yorkers, which is equipped 
with accident prevention appliances and seats forty-four. 

Next in line of march was No. 5000, which has been travel- 
ing up and down Broadway since last January. This is the 
low-level centre-entrance type. This car seats fifty-one per- 
sons and is designed to prevent any accidents." 

City of Five Millions.— New York City is rapidly advancing 
to first place in point of population. It has already achieved 
the primacy in all other respects. 

Manufacturing Centre.— It is the greatest manufacturing 
centre in the whole world. The dift'erent lines of manufacture 
represent an investment of a sum nearly equal to half the 
total of the money in circulation in the United States. The 
army of workers connected with these manufacturing interests 
outnumber the entire population of Liverpool. The yearly 
pay-roll to the employees in these factories amounts to enough 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 165 

to buy the entire city of St. Louis at the valuation put by the 
assessors upon that city of <S00,000 people. 

Statistics of New York City. — In the early part of this article 
one may get a good idea of what New York was a hundred 
years ago, when it did not extend above Chambers Street. 

What It Costs to Run New York City. — According to the 
census of 1910, New York City is the second most extrava- 
gantly governed city; it costs 119,681,592 dollars a year to 
run it, or $25.11 for each person in the cit}'. The New York 
Police Department is the largest drain on its finances. The 
total for the Police Department was 16,396,34'. dollars. New 
York's Fire Department cost 9,383,601 dollars. It cost New 
York City for health conservation 2,879,773 dollars. New 
York spent 

$ 9.563,000 for sanitation 
15,678,000 for highways 

9,900,000 for charities, hospitals and correction 
30,753.000 for schools 
1,737,000 for libraries and galleries 
3,424,000 for recreation 

New York's revenue receipts aggregated 197,000,000 dollars, 
including 

$141,000,000 from property, business and poll taxes 

7,000,000 from licenses and permits 

12,000,000 from special assessments ; and 

1,290.000 from departmental fees, rents and sales 

Tax Rates and Debts. — According to the most reliable 
statistics compiled, those of the United States Census Bureau 
for 1910, the true average rates of taxation per $1,000.00, for 
the seven leading cities of the United States, are: 

St. Louis $ll--il 

Pittsburg 12-93 

Chicago 13.53 

Philadelphia l-l-^^ 

New York l'^-''3 

Baltimore ^^-^^ 

Cleveland 20.14 



16G A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

The public debts of the largest cities, in total and per capita, 
are : 

St. Louis $ 25,856,690 $37.63 

Chicago 95,615,347 43.75 

Philadelphia 100,259,845 64.73 

Cleveland 42,678,563 76.12 

Pittsburg 56,438,613 105.71 

Baltimore 62,016,179 111.04 

New York 1,024,694,443 214.96 

The most of the following statistics of New York's present 
greatness were taken from various issues of the New York 
"Evening Mail," and may be considered authentic. 

New York City's Realty. — New York has realty worth more 
than one billion six hundred million dollars that pays no taxes, 
among which is Governor's Island, that was sold, in 1637, by 
the Indians to the Dutch, for the ec^uivalent of $1.65, and is 
now valued at six million five hundred thousand ; and Bryant 
Park, that contains 128 building lots, which was purchased for 
a burying ground and cost the city, in 1823, eight thousand 
four hundred and forty-nine dollars, is now valued at seven- 
teen millions. 

Tallest Buildings. — New York has the tallest buildings in 
the world. An army of over 50,000 men are kept busy putting 
up new buildings. An average of one building an hour is com- 
pleted. New York's tallest buildings are as follows : 

Height 

Stories Feet 

The Woolworth Building 55 750 

Metropolitan Life Tower 50 700 

Singer Tower 41 612 

New Municipal Building 24 560 

Bankers' Trust Building 39 539 

Largest User of Steel. — New York is the largest user of 
structural steel, with contracts let for 70,000 tons of steel for 
one bridge that is to be erected in New York within the next 
two years; with 30,000 tons of steel in each of the city's two 
great railroad stations; with 26,000 tons in the Woolworth 
Building, and with as much in the new Municipal Building. 
With all this use of structural steel, it is easv to see that New 




Tallest office structure 
in the world, Broadway 
between Barclay street 
and Park Place. Repre- 
sents a cost of $13, 500,- 
000, Erected in 1913 by 
Frank W. Woolworth, 
from the profits made on 
i five and ten-cent goods. 
\ From the head of the 
; tower to the sidewalk is 
a perpendicular drop of 
7'>2 feet, while more 
stories, lit only by the 
electric bulb, plunge 30 
feet below ground. 

The Woolworth Cor- 
poration is capitalized 
for $65,000,000. They 
have 680 stores, pay a 
yearly rental of over 
$4,000,000. Do a yearly 
cash business of about 
$65,000,000. Amorg 
other things sold is 5,- 
000, 000 pounds of candy 
and 9, SCO, 000 cakes of 
soap each year. 






(167) 



168 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

York is the world's largest consumer of this product of the 
steel mills, twenty-five millions' worth of steel a year. It is 
steel that has made the skyscrapers possible; that has made 
the Subways safe and feasible ; that has brought the spanning 
of the East River within the powers of man. 

New York's Hotels. — A hundred years ago there was not 
more than one really first-class hotel in the whole city. New 
York now has more hotels, finer and better hotels than any 
other city in the world. There are 750 hostelries in live 
boroughs, not counting 12,000 Raines' Law hotels, places that 
make the sale of liquor their chief business. They represent 
an investment of three hundred and fifty millions, which is a 
sum greater than the assessed value of all the real estate in 
the whole city of Baltimore. These hotels have accommoda- 
tions for three hundred and fifty thousand people, which means 
they could feed the entire population of Cincinnati, or could 
quarter the whole standing army of Great Britain and its colo- 
nies. It requires an army of fifty to sixty thousand men, 
women and boys to run these 750 hotels. This is a force equal 
to the entire arra}- of officers and men in the United States 
Navy. They can accommodate one hundred thousand resi- 
dents and two hundred and fifty thousand transients. 

New York's Restaurants. — There are over 7,000 restaurants 
in New York City, in which there is invested over two hun- 
dred and fifty millions. Over one million five hundred thous- 
and have lunches each day in these places. About one million 
dinners are served. More than five hundred thousand break- 
fasts are supplied. Nearly five hundred thousand suppers are 
required. This means a total of three million five hundred 
thousand meals served in the restaurants of the city between 
each dawn and the fading of the white lights in the small 
hours of the next morning. 

It has been ascertained that the average payment for a 
meal, grouping all the sorts of restaurants, is something over 
half a dollar, making the daily meal tickets of the whole army 
of restaurant patrons foot up to one million eight hundred 
thousand, or something like six hundred and fifty millions for 
the year. This sum equals the entire receipts, in a year, of 
the United States Government from tarifif duties and internal 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



169 



revenue taxes. The tips alone average over fifty millions a 
year; in other words, the gratuities to waiters in New York 
restaurants alone would build four bridges such as now span 
the East River. 

New York's Theatres. — There are more and finer theatres 
in New York than any other city in the world. It is estimated 
that the city's amusement bill foots up to fifty millions a year. 




NEW YORK SKYLINE FROAl HUDSON RIVER, 
Taken at the Time of the Hudson-FuUon Celebration, September, 1909. 

Food Supplies. — New York is a consumer rather than a pro- 
ducer of food supplies; the biggest consumer in the world, its 
supply costing over two billions per year. The daily supply 
of meats amounts to four million pounds, or one billion four 
hundred and sixty millions yearly. 

What It Costs to Light New York. — New York is probably 
the best lighted city in the world. The gas and electric bills 
of the city at the present time amount to over sixty millions 
a year. 

Note.— In 1697 the streets of this city were lighted, on other 
than moonlight nights, from the lights displayed in the win- 



170 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

dows of the houses fronting on the respective streets, according 
to the manner directed by the Mayor. About a hundred years 
later the streets of New York were lighted with sperm oil 
lamps. Gas street lamps were not introduced here until 1827. 
At present writing New York is so well lighted with electricity 
that Broadway is called the Great AXHiite Way. 

New York's Telegraph System. — New York has, at the pres- 
ent time, the most complete telegraph system in the world, 
having wires reaching out over the land nearly two millions of 
miles, and vmder the ocean, to other lands, over fifty thousand 
miles of cable. With the introduction of night letters, and conse- 
quently, the day letter, the business of these companies has 
grown enormously, being now estimated at one hundred and 
fifty millions of messages a year. About 20 per cent, of this 
business originates in New York and terminates here. In con- 
nection with the present tremendous expansion of telegraphy, 
the following is of interest : 

Samuel F. B. Morse, a young artist who was born and reared 
in New England, when but a few years past his majority, at 
the close of the second war with England, took up his resi- 
dence in New York. He was the founder and the first Presi- 
dent of the National Academy of Design. Like Fulton, Morse 
was an enthusiast in science, and when on a return voyage 
from Europe (whither he had gone in pursuit of his art), a 
fellow-passenger called his attention to recent experiments 
conducted in Paris, with the electro magnet, and told him that 
the transmission of electricity through a wire from one pomt 
to another, had been found to be practically instantaneous, the 
construction of the electric telegraph at once became the ab- 
sorbing purpose of his life. This was in 1832; and he gave 
the first exhibition of telegraphy in 1835. At the end of 1837 
he had perfected his instrument and his alphabetic system of 
dots and dashes, and had devised means of producing elec- 
tricity and of conveying it from place to place. His labors, 
however, had left him with an empty purse, and he had still 
to conquer the incredulity that barred the way to general use 
of his invention. He appealed to Congress for an appropria- 
tion with which to establish an experimental line between 
Washington and Baltimore, and finally, towards the close of 
the session of 181:3, the House voted such an appropriation by 
a large majority. All that was now needed was the favorable 
action of the Senate, but on the last day of the session the 
telegraph bill was still far down on the docket of that body. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST lU 

and Morse left the capital late in the evening- with little hope 
that it would be reached before the hour of adjournment. He 
returned to his hotel, counted his money, and found that after 
paying his expenses to New York, he would have less than 
a dollar left. 

The next morning, as he was going to breakfast, he was in- 
formed that a young woman was in the parlor waiting to see 
him. He found his caller to be Miss Annie Ellsworth, daugh- 
ter of the Commissioner of Patents, who had been his most 
steadfast friend during his long fight in Washington. 

"I came to congratulate you," was her greeting. 

"For what, my dear?" 

"On the passage of your bill. Didn't you know?" 

"Oh, you must be mistaken," said Morse. "I stayed in the 
Senate until late last night, and came away because there 
wasn't any prospect of its passage." 

"Am I the first to tell you?" 

"You are, if it is really so." 

"Well," she continued, "father remained till after adjourn- 
ment and heard it passed. He told me only a few moments 
ago, and I asked him if I could tell you about it." 

"Annie," said Morse, with a joyful tremor in his voice, "the 
first message sent from Washington to Baltimore shall be sent 
by you." 

First Telegraphic Message. — By May, 1844, the experimental 
line connected Baltimore with Washington, and Miss Ellsworth 
was summoned to send the first message. It read, "What hath 
God wrought?" and the original is now preserved among the 
archives of the Connecticut Historical Society. Proof was 
forthwith furnished of the practical usefulness of the telegraph, 
and soon lines were building in all States. The development 
of the telegraph brought wealth and fame to its inventor. 

His last days were passed in honored and delightful re- 
tirement in New York; and when he died, in May, 18T2, his 
last city home was house No. 5 West Twenty-second Street, 
on which site a tablet was erected in his memory. 

A statue of Samuel F. B. Morse can also be seen in Central 
Park (Seventy-second Street, near Fifth Avenue). It was 
erected by the telegraphers of the country. 

R. E. Dietz was interested in a conductive wire for use in 
submarine telegraphy, and the following is a facsimile of a 
letter sent to him by Samuel F. B. Morse from Locust Grove, 
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. : 



172 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



V-^^^t^ 





'yC^ Y. ^/(fj-i 



:X: 



a^c^u-c^ >£-^, 



.u^O 













6/ ^Tt-S^^^^L-Jt-Z^^^^z^^T. 










'^^<^'-iSi-<.i^.'C<fC--'>^Ut^ — 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



173 








/"Ax) ^'K/^ t^i-^ /^a^ t-e--> 










/^ny^^t^ 



New York As a Money Centre. — Bank clearances show New 
York to be the money centre. Banking powers of New York 
City are a fourth those of any nation. 

New York a Great Railroad Centre. — Eleven great railroads 
focus here. The inbound and outbound freight handled by the 
railroads coming to New York amounts to over five million 
two hundred and fifty thousand tons per year. 

New York As a Seaport. — New York leads among the 
world's greatest seaports; 114 steamship lines enter the harbor. 
In 1911 nearly ten thousand vessels entered this port. 



174 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

City's Greatest Asset. — The city's greatest asset comes from 
the water fronts it owns. They represent a minimum value 
of one hundred millions. The city's income from this is about 
four millions annually. 

New York's Dry Docks. — New York has the greatest dry 
dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It cost two millions live 
hundred thousand dollars. It will receive a 26,000-ton battle- 
ship. 

New York's Bridges. — The city has the world's greatest 
bridges. New York has erected across the East River four of 
the world's ten greatest bridges, beginning with the Brooklyn 
Bridge, which was one of the wonders of the world when 
erected. It was begun in 18T0, opened in 1883, has cost 
twenty-two millions to date, and its cables carry a permanent 
weight of 11:,680 tons of steel. It is crossed daily by over 
4,000 trolley cars and as many elevated cars. 

The Williamsburg Bridge, completed in 1903, is made of 
45,000 tons of steel, 8,000,000 board feet of timber, 190,000 
cubic yards of masonry; it is crossed daily by 5,000 trolley 
cars and 1,200 elevated cars; but its traffic capacity has not 
yet been developed. It is the greatest suspension bridge in 
the world. Each of its four cables weighs 6,300 tons. It is 
6,855 feet long, 120 feet wide, and will carry four trolley and 
four subway tracks, besides a thirty-five-foot roadway and two 
eleven-foot promenades. It cost ten millions. 

The Queensboro Bridge, opened in 1909, cost twenty-five 
millions ; it has six millions' worth of steel in its super- 
structure. 

Manhattan Bridge, paralleling the first, or Brooklyn Bridge, 
cost, with land, about twenty millions. 

The four East River bridges have collectively twenty-six 
railroad tracks. These tracks, if used to their capacity by 
railroads, could transport, in an hour, in each direction, across 
the bridges, 550,000 people. In a little over three hours, with- 
out inconvenience, the whole population of Brooklyn could be 
brought to Manhattan through the use of the railroad facili- 
ties. 

The city has built one hundred and thirty-five million dol- 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



175 



f 
I' 



I 




176 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

lars' worth of bridges, chiefly over the East River and the 
Harlem River. 

The Pennsylvania Railroad is l^uilding the greatest of all 
the world's bridges. It is to be erected over Hell Gate, and 
with its approach will be over three miles long. The New 
York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and the Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad Companies are the corporations behind this 
colossal undertaking. A rough estimate of the amount of 
steel that will be needed for its structure is put at 70,000 
tons, all of which will be in constructed parts weighing up 
to 150 tons. It will have a span of 1,000 feet over Hell Gate, 
and five spans of from 110 to 200 feet. The cost is expected 
to be not less than eighteen millions. 

Women's Clothing. — Three-quarters of all the women's 
clothing made in shops comes from New York City. Shirt 
waists had their origin and perfection here. More are made 
here than in any other city. A billion dollars' worth of 
wearing apparel is made in this city yearly. The two leading 
industries in New York are women's and men's clothing. 

Greatest Cotton Market. — New York is the greatest cot- 
ton market in the world, four-fifths of the cotton crop being 
sold here. 

China Ware. — China ware to the value of ten millions is 
sold in this city annually. 

Pianos. — New York makes the most renowned pianos in 
the world ; makes more pianos than the rest of the country 
put together, and makes more than any other city or country 
in the world. The wholesale value of a year's output amounts 
to over thirty-one million dollars. 

Brewing. — Brewing is the ninth industry in this city. The 
value of the annual output amounts to over sixty-three mil- 
lion six hundred thousand dollars. 

Oil the Wonder Worker. — Oil is the wonder worker of 
modern industry. In ten years past the records show that 
there was exported from this country over two hundred and 
seventy-three million dollars' worth of oil. 

What copper was to the ancients and iron to the medievals, 
oil, with its myriad by-products, is to the modern world. The 
"cause" producing the "efi^ect" of easy moving machinery, 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 177 

cheap motive power, quick transportation, and all the essen- 
tial comforts which man has become so accustomed to that he 
never notices them, can be traced directly to the burning 
water of the Japanese and the medicine waters of the West- 
ern Indians. While still considered to be in its swaddling 
clothes, the oil industry has reached proportions which over- 
top all but a very few of the American trades. 

It was in 1858, a bare half century ago, that Edwin L. 
Drake, a conductor on the New York and New Haven Rail- 
road, started his first oil well. The incident, with the tor- 
rent of ridicule which was heaped upon Drake, are well 
within the memory of many of the citizens of New York, 
who have watched the industry grow from 1860, when the 
arrival of a dozen barrels of the slimy, horrible-smelling liquid 
in port was enough to cause comment, to this day, when the 
almost incalculable amount of one and a quarter billion gal- 
lons of crude petroleum and its products leave New York 
Harbor annually. 

The Largest Exporting City. — New York is the largest ex- 
porting city in the world, sending into foreign markets manu- 
factures of iron and steel at the rate of almost half a million 
dollars per day. 

Exports of Copper. — Copper leads in exports of metal. 
The largest single item in the city's annual exports is copper, 
with a total value, in 1911, of seventy-one million two hun- 
dred and sixty-one thousand and eighty-seven dollars. In 
the shipments to foreign ports, the total for the country was 
ninety-eight million seven hundred and five thousand three 
hundred and eight dollars. The quantity of this metal shipped 
from this port was about half the entire production of the 
country. 



178 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

Wonderful New York. — Tlie following appeared in the New 
York World February 9, 1913: 



"In 1850 New York City, With the Exception of the 

Church Spires, Had a Skyline Four Stories 

High. 



Manhattan Island Proper Was Scarcely Half 

Covered With Dwellings, and the Total 

Population Was 696,115. 



By Dr. Joseph Caccavajo, C. E. 

If a San Francisco earthquake, a Chicago fire or a Gal- 
veston tidal wave should attack New York in the daytime 
could the population of lower Manhattan Island escape? 

Decidedly not. The streets would not be half large enough 
to hold the mass of men and women that would swarm out 
of the skyscrapers. 

Should some unusual occurrence start a panic below Cham- 
bers Street not more than three-quarters of the office workers 
could get out of the buildings. 

The streets would be so clogged that it would be impos- 
sible to force a way into them. They would be packed solid 
with struggling men and fainting women ; the strong would 
trample on the weak ; a few would escape into the upper part 
of the island, but thousands would die, crushed under the 
boots of the fear-stricken mob. 

The Iroquois Theatre horror would be repeated on a mam- 
moth scale. There would be insulificient exits and men and 
women would murder each other in the hopeless, selfish fight 
for life. 

New York is the only city in the world which has a district 
where the streets will not hold the population of the build- 
ings fronting upon them. 

It is a tremendous problem that the city faces. The only 
remedy in sight is a complete rebuilding of downtown Man- 
hattan. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 179 

72,000 Population In Ten New York Skyscrapers. 

Floor area 

Building. Population, in Sq. Ft. 

Fifth Avenue 5,0()() 550,000 

Metropolitan Life 15,000 1,085,000 

Woolworth 7,000 785,000 

Singer 4,000 341,000 

City Investing 7,500 500,000 

Pulitzer 3,000 266,352 

Terminal !J,500 977,000 

Adams Express 8,000 678,720 

Municipal 8,000 800,000 

Broad Exchange 6,000 600,000 



Total population of ten 6,583,072 

buildings 72,000 

This amount is equal to the population of Schenec- 
tady, N. Y. 

New York tears down a building which has a hundred 
tenants and puts up on the same site one mighty pile with 
10,000 population. The great Woolworth Building is planned 
to contain that many persons, and its fifty-five floors are 
ready for occupancy. The great new Equitable Building, with 
its thirty-six stories, will accommodate 10,000 more, so will 
the Adams Express Company's new structure at Broadway 
and Exchange Alley. And there are many other such build- 
ings planned. 

To-day if the daylight population of lower Manhattan should 
try to escape from the stores and offices at one moment they 
would be piled two deep in all the streets from Bowling Green 
north to Vesey Street, and between Greenwich and Pearl 
Streets ! At the present rate of growth they would be six 
deep under similar conditions twenty years from now. 

The original city of New York was laid out between the 
years 1807 and 1811. The men of that time planned streets 
to the end of Manhattan Island. They were looked upon as 
visionaries, and in their report they apologized and admitted 
that they should be subject to criticism. They, of course, fore- 
saw no such congestion as now exists in lower Manhattan. 

There are half a million persons during business hours in 
this congested area, which extends from Bowling Green to 
the City Hall (about three-quarters of a mile) and from Pearl 
to Greenwich Streets (less than half a mile). In this section 
there are comparatively few buildings that are not in the sky- 
scraper class. 



180 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 

This part of New York has a street area of about 1,113,000 
square feet. Let us assume that each person occupies a space 
of two feet by eighteen inches. Piling out in the streets at 
the same time, they would take up almost twice that area. 
In other words, half the people would be struggling over the 
heads of the other half. And these figures do not allow for 
any vehicles that might be in the streets. 

The streets in lower Manhattan in the area I have men- 
tioned will accommodate just 300,000 persons at one time, and 
there are a half-million doing business there every week day. 
Why all this congestion? Why this lack of room in the 
streets? Is anybody to blame? 

Assuredly not. When New York was laid out a century 
ago lower Manhattan was a modest place, indeed, with a 
population of 96,373. What are to-day mighty arteries of 
business and traffic were then country lanes or alleys, amply 
wide enough to accommodate all who would use them. One 
and two-story buildings were dotted along these lanes and 
alleys and there was room in the streets for everybody with- 
out a bit of jostling. 

Next came three and four-story buildings, and still there 
was plenty of room. When the six-story buildings were put 
up we arrived at the period of the elevator. These higher 
buildings in turn gave way to the skyscraper some thirty 
years ago. In 1882 the tallest building in New York was 
ten stories. We jumped to fifteen, twenty, thirty and more 
stories, and the streets were still the same width. 

The daily average number of tickets sold at the Fulton 
Street Subway Station is 43,174; at Wall Street, 23,158; at 
Bowling Green it is 15,124. The L roads show about the 
same, or a total of some 160,000 persons. The Brooklyn 
Bridge, the McAdoo tunnels, the street cars, the ferries from 
Jersey, Brooklyn and Staten Island, to say nothing of the 
Pennsylvania, Long Island and other railroads, dump in their 
hordes every morning. 

This population will grow. To accommodate the increasing 
conflux of persons there will be more and more skyscrapers. 
Yet the streets will be no wider. 

The only change ever made was that by Borough President 
McAneny and his consulting engineer, Mr. Goodwin, who 
have been clearing out the encroachments on the streets. 
Millions of square feet of city property, used for years by 
private owners for show windows, facades, pilasters, stoops 
and the like, are now reclaimed. This has widened the streets 
somewhat, but it is not near enough. 

New York City has doubled in size in the last twenty years. 
Experts say it will double again in the next twenty years. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 181 

This means that in 1930 we shall have a daylight population 
on Manhattan Island of ten million persons. Where we have 
one skyscraper now we shall have three then. 

Now assume the catastrophe, with our streets and all the 
extra population. To-day they would be piled two deep in 
the thorou.e^hfares if all had to escape at once, as they did 
in San Francisco when the entire populace took to the streets 
while the city was rocking and swaying. 

New York City's present city limits will embrace a popu- 
lation of 25,000,000 in 2013, and there will be 10,000,000 more 
within an hour of the City Hall, most of them doing business 
on Manhattan Island. Our city line will have to extend to 
Connecticut and to Putnam County. All Long Island will be 
part of the city. The elevated roads will be torn down and 
the bridges over the rivers will be obsolete monuments of 
another age. Under-river and under-street tunnels will take 
the place of the traffic ways we see to-day. 

New York must be rebuilt; it is to be at a cost of sixty 
billions of dollars. When it is rebuilt the world will contain 
a population of five billions, of which 600,000,000 will live 
in the United States. Five billion is a large number, yet 
New York State could make room for them all, and there 
would be less population per acre than Manhattan Island 
holds to-day. 

A hundred years from now New York will have a daily 
death rate of some 1,500 and a birth rate of 2.000. Think 
of the room our streets must have for funerals ! New York 
is now growing at the rate of 17,000 persons a month or 
200,000 a year. The population of no other city in the world 
is increasing so rapidly. It is estimated that London will be 
the second city in size within two years. To-day there are 
500 more persons in New York than there were yesterday, 
and it is the same every day. 

There is just one remedy. Our narrow streets downtown 
must be arched. The sidewalks must reach under the build- 
ings on the street line. Some streets must be closed to 
vehicular traffic during business hours, so that pedestrians 
may have the entire street as a sidewalk, as they practically 
have now in Nassau Street from Wall Street to the Brook- 
lyn Bridge. 

This will provide room under normal conditions. Suppose 
a great fire swept us, or we had an earthquake — what then? 



182 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



The Density of Population in New York. 

In New York the space for Which gives the following 

each person is as follows : niimlier to the acre : 

Manhattan 29 sq. yds. Manhattan 166 

Brooklyn 147 sq. yds. Brooklyn 33 

Bronx 285 sq. yds. Bronx 17 

Queens 968 sq. yds. Queens 5 

Richmond 2-420 sq. yds. Richmond 2 



After placing the manuscript for this book in the hands of 
the printer, I found it neecssary to make a number of cor- 
rections and changes on the proofs when same were sub- 
mitted, and while I realized that the changes caused delay, 
it seemed as though the printer was taking a longer time than 
necessary to complete the job, and I did not hesitate to make 
this fact known to him. The printer, believing that the delay, 
if any, was caused by myself on account of a readjustment 
of some of the pages after they were completed and new mat- 
ter being added, he sent me the verses as they appear on the 
following page, with a note saying that he hoped I would 
take no offense at same, and as I rather enjoyed reading his 
poem, I thought others might also. 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 183 



A Leaf About the Fast? 

(A tcail from the Printer.) 

There was u muu from New York State, 
Who, as he sat and scratched his pate, 
Exckiimed, "By gum! I'll write a book 
Tliafll make the world sit up and look." 

He started iu long years ago. 
Before his beard began to grow ; 
But now, the beard and earth have met 
And still the l)ook — aint finished yet. 

When lie began this book to write, 
'Twas no such thing as electric light, 
But weary Tilgrims groped their way 
By means of "Lanterns' " flickering ray. 
'Twas iu the days where from the heights 
Of Old North Church they hung the lights 
That signalled Paul to start his ride 
That's ever been New England's pride. 

(I mention this just here to prove 
How New York people slowly move. 
If, to write a "Leaf" an age it took, 
How long will it take to write a book?) 

This author then he worked the pace 
That a snail would run to win a race. 
He'd write a line, then mark it out 
And turn the whole thing all about. 
Old "Charley Horse," he stood serene. 
Hitched to a post at page sixteen. 
But when this author he got through, 
He found himself at ninety-two. 

We all admit New Y'ork is fast 
'Bout things that make one .'^tand aghast. 
But writing books, there's such delay, 
They never get through till Judgment Day. 

And yet this author, he's all right. 

He's short on books hut long on "Light," 

So we'll forget how long he takes 

On account of the "Lamps" and things he makes. 

— L. H. Jenkins. 



184 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



Author's Concluding Remarks. 

Under date of Dec. 9, 1913, which was about the time this 
book was ready to go to press. I received a letter from my 
cousin, Mrs. Ella M. Dietz-Glynes (who now resides in Lon- 
don, Eng.), eldest daughter of William Henry Dietz, my 
father's first business partner. In her letter she suggested 
that I illustrate, in this book, the Diez or Dietz Coat of Arms, 
which is reproduced on the following page. It consists of 
two Golden Leopardis-Lyons, one over the other, in a red field. 



It is said that "there is not anything so powerful as the 
aggregate of many small things," and in assembling the many 
little details of this work, I have spent much of my odd time 
during the past two years. If the book proves of interest to 
those who may read it, I shall feel well repaid for the time 
spent on it. 

Sincerely, 

New York, Dec. 20, 1913. 



INDEX 

Illus. Text. 

Adam^! Express Co., Beginuiiig of 42 

Advertisemeut, Early Dietz 7g 

American Projectors Atlantic Cal)le 103 

Astor, First John Jacob 6X 

Astor Honse ... G3 63 

Atlantic Cable 101 

Author's Concluding Remarks 184 

Bank of New York 40 

Barker, Kirkland C 153 

Barnuni. P. T 82, 88 

Beard— A Full Beard 52 

Betts, Charles L 148 

Betts, Lewis F 149 

Birthplace of Fred Diet/- 83 

Birthplace of R. E. Dietz 49 49 

"Bowling Green" 24 

Bridge (3ver Broadway 93 92 

Bridge. Broadway at Canal St. (1815) 121 

Broadway, City Hall and Park Row (1840) 33 

Broadway, Cor. Spring St. (1820) 49 

Broadway, No. 1 42 

Broadway, No. 20 43 

Broadway of Early Days 25 

Brooklyn Bridge 175 

Burning of Barnum's Museum 91 

Burning of Dietz Lantern Factory 137 

Callender, William 56 

Canal, Harlem 45 

Candle Lantern 97 

Castle Garden. Exterior 88 

Castle Garden, Interior 89 

Central Park 100 

Chemical Bank 99 

Childhood of Rapid Transit 75 

Circular. Tubular Lantern 107 

City Hall 22, 39 

City Hall, Broadway and Park R<nv (1840) 33 

City Hotel 28 

CLEMENT, FRANK H 134 

(185) 



186 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



-Payc- 



Illiis. Text. 

Coal Oil to Public Notice 95 

Critical Year (1S97 ) 136 

Crystal I'alace 92 

Delmonico Bros." Restaui'aiit 57 

DIETZ :— 

& Company 94 

& Company, London 102 

& Smith 107 105 

& Smith Dissolved lOS 

Blazed the Way 161 

Brother & Co 77, S2 

Brother & Co. "Ad." 78 

Coat of Arms Op. p. 184 

Company (K. E. ) Incorporated 122 

Company (R. PI) Chicago Sales Office 115 

Company {II. E. ) London Sales Office 144 145 

Diez or Dietz Castle 2 

Factories : 

First Lantern Factory 110 

Second Lantern Factory Ill 

Third Lantern Factory 123 

Third Lantern Factory on Fire 137 

Third Lantern Factory Rebuilt 141 

Fourth Lantern Factory 138 

Combined Lantern Factories Ol>- p- 1-12 

Family of John Dietz, Jr 23 

Family of John Joachim Dietz 4 

FRED 129 130 

Grandfather John Joachim 2 

Grandfather John Joachim, Glue Works 29, 44 

Grandfather John Joachim, Home 44 

Grandmother 4 

John, Jr., and Wife 22 

JOHN E 131 

Lanterns 98, luo, 101 

Lanterns (Trade Mark ) 162 

ROBERT EDWIN Front i.ynccc. 

Apprenticed 60 

At His Desk 125 

Birthplace 49 49 

Decease 139 

Defaulting Bookkeeper 126 

Experiments with Artificial Light 74 

Family of 84 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 18^ 



-Pagc- 



Illus. Text. 

First Coal Oil Burner ^-^ 

First Lamps "^'^ 

Great Financial I-oss ■^-■* 

Home (1846-53) ^3 

Homestead at Burlingliam, N. Y 5 

Homestead at Hemiistead, N. Y 1-10 

"Man and tlie Lantern" 10-* 

Marriage 

Origin ■*■ 

Portrait with Original Tubular Lantern 109 

Portrait with Anna Hadwick Op. i;. S3 

Purchase of Factory Site 11* 

Sails for Mobile • *^ 



Skating Place as a Boy 



"Evening Post" _ 

Everett, Ernest C 

Facsimile of 

Cyrus W. Field's Letter ^^-; 

Dietz, Brother & Co.'s "Ad." '_^_ 

Philip Hone's Letter ^;^ 

Samuel F. B. Morse's Letter ^^- 

William Meinell's Letter !-*■- 



All Night Cafe 

American Play 

City Hall 

Cutting & Drawing Power Pre 

Elevated Railroad 

Financial Institution 



120 

77 



Starts in Business 

Volunteer Fireman ^ '^ 

ROBERT E.. 2nd 1^- 

Discovery of Petroleum "^ 

Domestic Lighting a Serious Expense • ^ 

Downing ( Mr. ) and Central Park 1 '^ 

Dunbar, Samuel 

Drake, Col. Edw. L. and Drake Oil Well •>:"' 

Eberhardt. Chas. F. and Old Horse "Charlie" 158 157 

E^i^' ^^^'^^ : lis 

Ericsson, Capt. John C 



30 



155 



Faithful Employees 

Farm House of John ^leyers, Harlem ^^^ ^^^ 



82 



Field, Cyrus W 

Fifth Avenue in 1^11 

First — • 92 

......... 79 

"['[[ 39 

" " ' lOS 

[\ 102 

40 



188 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



-P(if/r- 



nius. Tc.Tt. 

Fire Departuieiit 26 

Florist 80 

Gas Works 74 

Glue Works 29 

Horse Car Lines 92 

Hndson River Passenger Station 87 

John Jacob Astor 01 

Large Sewer Gl 

Mail 34, 35 

Oil Well 90 9(] 

One Cent Daily Pajier 71 

Printing Press 2G 

Eeservoir 41 40 

Savings Bank 77 

Steamboat 31 

Steam Ferry Boat 32 

Steam Railway out of N. Y 74 

Street Railway in the World 57 

Sunday School 60 

Theatre 27 

Whiteman's Habitation on Manhattan Island 124 

"Five Points" 54 53 

Flag House of (ireenwich Village 117 

Freight Station (X. Y. Central), St. John's Park 122 

"From Candles to Kerosene" ( )i). p. 143 

Fuel Used Prior to 1S30 53 

Fulton, Robert 30 

German Lutheran Church 4 

Golden Hill Inn SI 

Great Fire, New York's (1835 ) 61 

Greenwich Village 114 

Group of Dietz Old Employees, N. Y 154 

Group of Dietz Old Employees, Syracuse 156 

Harbor of New York Op. p. 1 

Harlem Canal 45 

"Herald," New York 71 

Home of Capt. John C. Ericsson 118 

Home of Ex-Mayor Daniel F. Tiemann 55 

Homes of some of the "400" 116 

Hone, Philip 86 

His Letter to R. E. Dietz 85 

Horse Car Lines 92 

How City Was First Lighted 26 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 189 



-Puije- 



l lilts. Text. 

Imitutioiis of Original Tubular Lantern 105 

"Imperator"' 49 

India Rubber Overshoes 57 

Inhabitants, New York (ISIO ) 32 

Irwin Tubular Lantern 103, 112 

"Is Your Train Moving" 157 

Jenney, Col. E. S. and Irwin Patents 112 

John Street Methodist Church so SO 

3o\\n Street Theatre 77 

John Street Theatre, Stage of 79 

Lantern for Prof. Wise 112 

Lantern, Original Tubular 1U7 103. 112 

Leaf About the Fast, A 183 

Lease of House, GG Beekman Street S4 

Letter of William Meinell, Octogenarian 13-20 

Letter of Cyrus W. Field 102 101 

Letter of Samuel F. B. Morse 172 

Letter of Mayor Philip Hone 85 

Lind's (Jenny) Concerts S8 

"Log Cabin" 73 

Luerssen, Anna E 127 

"Man and the Lantern" 100 

Manhattan Beservoir -11 40 

McArthur, Warren 135 

Meinell — ■ 

Family of George and Ann 7 

Grandfather and Grandmother G, 21 

Grandfather's Home in Harlem 9 

Inscriptions on Graves -- 

James -I'i 

Mary Ann Meinell INIeyers 11 

Remarkable Letter of William 13-20 

When Grandfather Came to New Yoi-k 9 

Where Grandpa Resided in London 8 

William 12 

Meyers (John) Farm House 10 

Morse, Samuel F. B I'i'O 

His Letter to R. E. Dietz 172 

NEW YORK— 

"Bowling Green" -"^ 

Brewing ^^^ 

Bridge Over Broadway ^3 9- 

Bridges i ' "* 



190 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



-P(t(j('- 



lUiis. Tc.rt. 
Broadway : 

Cor. Spring St. (1S20) 49 

No. 1 42 

No. 20 43 

of Earl}^ Days 25 

Brooklyn Bridge 175 

Castle (harden (Original ) SS, 89 

Central Park 100 

Chemical Bank 99 

China ware 176 

City Hall 33 32, 39 

City Hotel 28 

City of Five Millions 164 

Cost of Lighting 169 

Cotton Market 176 

Crystal Palace 92 

Dry Docks 174 

"Evening Post" 30 

Exports iu 1790 and To-day 28 

Exports of Copper 177 

Famous Jenny Lind Concerts 88 

Flag House of Greenwich Village 117 

First : 

All Night Cafe 92 

American Play 79 

City Hall 39 

Elevated Railroad 102 

Financial Institution 40 

Fire Department 26 

Florist 80 

Gas Works 74 

Glue Works 29 

Great Fire 61 

Horse Car Lines 92 

John Jacob Astor 61 

Large Sewer 61 

Mail • 34, 35 

One Cent Daily Paper 71 

Passenger Railroad Station 87 

Printing Press 26 

Reservoir 40 

Saviugs Bank 77 

Steamboat 31 

Steam Ferry Boat 32 

Steam Railroad out of N. Y 74 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 191 



-I'ligc- 



lUus. Text. 

Street Car 57 

Svinday School gO 

Telegraphic Message 171 

Telegraph Line, X. Y. to Phila S7 

Theatre 27 

■Whiteman's Habitation 011 Mtnihattan Island... 124 

"Five Points" in 1S27 54 53 

Food Supplies 109 

Fuel Used Prior to 1S30 53 

Golden Hill lun 81 

Greenwich Village II4 

Harbor ( ip. p. 1 

"Herald" and Founder 71 

Homes of '■400" 116 

Hotels 168 

How City Was First Lighted 26 

Inhabitants in 1810 32 

Largest Exitortiug City 177 

Largest User of Steel 166 

Manufacturing Centre 164 

Money Centre 173 

Neglect of Famous Sons 85 

N. Y. C. i& H. E. R. II. Purchases St. John's Park. 121 

N. Y. C. & H. R. Frt. Sta. (St. John's Park ) 122 

Oil, the Wonder Worker 176 

Old Astor House (i3 

Old Broadway Omnilms 59 

Old City Markets 47 

Oldest Landmarks 24 

Oldest Street 29 

Old St. John's Church SO 80 

Old St. John's Theatre 77 

Old St. John's Theatre, Stage of 79 

Old Stone Bridge Over Broadway 121 

Original Castle Garden 88 

Original Castle Garden, Interior 89 

Park Theatre (1798) 29 

Past and Present 103 

Pianos 170 

Post-Offices : 

First 35 

Second 35 

Third 36 

Fourth 37 

Fifth 38 

Railroad Centi-e 173 



193 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



-Piige- 



Illiis. Text. 

Realty Value 166 

Kestaurants 168 

St. John's Chapel 119 

St. John's Tark 116 

St. Paul's Chapel 27 

Seaport 173 

Skyline from Hudson River 169 

Slave Market 39 

Social Centres of a Century 24 

Stages in ISIO 32 

Stephenson, John 57 

Statistics , 165 

Stock Exchani^e 39 

Tallest Buildings 166 

Tax Rates and Debts 165 

Telegraph System 170 

Tontine Association 41 

Tontine Coffee House 42 

Theatres 169 

"Tribune" 73 

Wall Street 39 

Water Front, Greatest Asset 174 

What It Costs to Run 165 

Where the 7th Regt. Was Organiz^^d 53 

Women's Clothing 176 

Wonderful New York 178 

Woohvorth Building 167 

"Vleigh" ("Fly" ) Market 48 

Oil, the Wonder Worker 176 

Old Astor House 63 63 

Old City Markets 47 

Oldest Landmark 24 

Old Horse "Charlie" 158 

Old Horse "Charlie" on Parade 159 

Old House at Foot of Dietz Castle 3 

Old Stone Bridge, Broadway and Canal St. (1815)... 121 

Omnibus, Old Broadway 59 

Original Irwin Tubular Pantern 103 112 

Original Tubular Lantern Circular 107 

Park Theatre (1798) 29 

Pioneer Florist 80 

Portraits of — 

FRED DIETZ 129 

JOHN E. DIETZ 131 



A LEAF FROM THE PAST 103 



— I'UffC- 



lUiiH. T(.t1. 

ROBERT v.. DIETZ. I'lul j;«2 

FRANK H. CLEMENT T.H 

rost-Office, New York — 

First :>.-, 

Second 35 

Tliird 3(5 

Fourth 37 

Fifth as 

I'riee. I-^dgtir I) 150 

rrojectors of Atlantic ("able 10.'> 

Purcliase of St. John's I'aik liy New York Vvw \2\ 

"Queen of Cold Blast Eanterns" 100 

"Red House" 4(". 

Rogers, Eew 47 

St. Jolm'.s Chapel 11<> 

St. John's Park IIC. 

St, Paul's Chapel 27 

Salmon, I*. E 1 4( I 

Sardy, John 1 14;; 

Sardy, John L.. "World Trip 143 

Sardy, John L., I'nd World Trip 145 

Sardy, John E., Decease 145 

"Savannah" and "Imperator" 49 

Serious Expense of Domestic Lighting 94 

Seveutli Regiment — Wliere Organized 5S 

Slave Market 31) 

Social Centres of a Century 24 

Skyline From Hudson River lOO 

Spirit Cas <'.n 

Stage of Old John Street Theatre 7:) 

Stages (1810) :V1 

Steam Gauge «& Lantern Co. Organized ll.*) 

Steam Gauge & Lantern Co. Purchased i;50 

Steam Gauge & Lantern Co. Works (4th 1 detz Lan- 
tern Factory 1.^8 

Stephenson, John 57 

Stock Exchange, N. Y .*>'J 

Storj' of Astor House (i4 

Street Car I'arade 1(>4 

"Sini" — First One Cent l>aily Paper 71 

Telegraph Line Opened, N. X. to PhiladelphLi 87 

Tiemann, I-]x-Mayor Dan'l F 50 



194 A LEAF FROM THE PAST 



-I'dfjc- 



JIIiis. Text. 

Tieinaiin. Ex-Mayor Dau'l F., Ilonu' <if ."5 

Tontine Association (ITitO) 41 

Tontine Coft'ee House 42 

•■Tril)une." New York 73 

\'anl)uyn, Fredericlv W 151 

Various Interesting Facts ~u 

Veteran Truck Horse "f'liarlie" l-jS, 150 

••Vleigli" ("Fly" ) Market 1>^ 

Wail from the Printer. A 183 

Wall Street 39 

Weston, l^dward I'ayson 112 

White, William Henry 133 

Wise's (Prof.) Lantern J12 

Woodworth, Samuel 42 

Woolworth Buildini: 107 

Work Horse Parades, New York 158 



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